‘I Am Greta’ director explains the ‘extreme hatred’ the climate activist has received

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Grossman also sees Thunberg’s youth as being one of the triggers for her critics, in much the same way that Parkland shooting survivors David Hogg and Emma González became targets in the right wing mediasphere after they spoke out in favor of gun control. Similarly, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is frequently on the receiving end of attacks by politicians and commentators who seem unnerved by her popularity among younger, more progressive voters.

“If you’re a young person who doesn’t even have voting rights or economic power, you need to scream louder and protest louder because it’s your future at stake,” he explains. “And when it comes to climate change in particular, the younger you are the more you’re going to feel its effects. Older people tend to be the ones attacking Greta, and they want to shove this issue into the future because it’s not something that will affect them. But I think that gives young people and their worries even more legitimacy — they’re the ones who have to live in that future. And they’ve never asked to be the generation that has to solve this.” 

According to Grossman, Thunberg is well aware of the hatred her outspoken activism has engendered among adults, who then act like children when they write about her on the internet. Far from backing down, though, she continues to raise her voice and discuss the issue of climate change in unequivocal terms. During her address to the UN, she memorably accused a roomful of diplomats and politicians of stealing “my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” repeatedly exclaiming, “How dare you!”

“Young people have grown up with the internet and social media, so they understand that crazy hate accounts are, sadly, a part of the digital landscape,” he explains. “When the movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival, 500 people saw it in the theaters, but thousands of people were logging onto IMDb saying they’d seen it and that it was a piece of s***. It says a lot about the digital world, and that we shouldn’t give too much attention to that. Greta and many young people understand that better than older people, who still think that everything on the internet is real.”

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At the same time, someone who screams so loudly for so long risks losing their voice. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez expressed uncertainty about her political future, in part due to the hostile treatment she experienced during her first term. “I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same,” she said. And there are moments in I Am Greta — like Thunberg’s confession that the climate fight is “too much for her” — that makes viewers wonder how long she’ll continue to lead the movement she helped start.

Asked whether he thinks Thunberg might step back from the spotlight, Grossman admits that “other things” like school will likely come to occupy her attention in the near term. “But I think we will continue to hear her voice on this topic,” he stresses. “When I was following her, I didn’t know if she was going to practice what she preached, but it’s been so fun to see how, over and over again, she’s fixated on wanting to stand for something and do it.” 

One thing she likely won’t do is have a face-to-face encounter with Trump before or after he leaves office. “Greta has said before that she doesn’t think Trump would listen to her, so I’m not sure she would spend the time trying to convince him,” Grossman says, adding that despite her endorsement of Biden in the presidential election, Thunberg generally eschews political party affiliation, seeing a dispiriting lack of will to confront climate change on both sides of the aisle. “Biden has a more [progressive] agenda on climate change than Donald Trump has — it’s hard not to,” he notes. “But we need to be very mindful and monitor how the political world addresses climate change in the coming year, because we need to treat it as a crisis. We need to make sure our newly elected officials do that.”

I Am Greta premires Friday, Nov. 13 on Hulu.

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