10/19/2026
Recently, a new villain has appeared in movies and novels. He is wealthy, educated, powerful, and responsible for the crime of the century. He is the oil executive who knowingly endangers life on Earth to make a profit. He shows up in the excellent new Tom Cruise movie Digger, in George Saunder’s wonderful novel Vigil, and in the very weird Tilda Swinton movie, The End. All of these stories struggle with how to understand men who betray not just the welfare of their species, but all species. They are our century’s Bond villains, except that in this case, they are real.
The irony, of course, is although these men show up in these movies and books, most of us have no idea who any of them are in real life. I can’t name a single oil executive. They aren’t famous like the Tech Bros. We know their companies of course, Exxon, Shell, Esso, etc… We know that they have deliberately suppressed studies that found a clear link between fossil fuels and climate change. We know that over many decades they paid “experts” and funded right wing think tanks to call climate change into question. We know that they made campaign contributions to politicians to make sure it will be safe to “drill, baby drill” in the long term, a bet that has paid off handsomely. They have even made huge windfall profits from Trump’s war with Iran. But still, most of us don’t know the names of any of these men, despite their enormous power over the world’s past, present and future.
Perhaps that is why they have appeared in films and novels lately, as a way of understanding the most enigmatic men of our time. In the movie The End, Tilda Swinton is married to one of these oil executives. He and his family, with their servants and close friends, live deep underground in a salt mine. Before climate change forced the collapse of civilization, this oil baron built a luxury bunker filled with the best art of all time, and enough fish tanks and greenhouses to keep them alive for years. Michael Shannon plays the oil executive, who has been down here for decades, happily forgetting his role in destroying the climate and life on Earth. He is kind and dim witted. He acts like the end of the world was just a bad tennis match he lost, best left in the past. Pass the martini. To make the film even more bizarre, it is a musical. The characters burst into song to express their feelings, as though they were just a happy go lucky family, rather than the rats who escaped the burning ship. Denial runs strong in this family, and it starts at the top, with the oil executive.
In the new movie Digger, Tom Cruise plays an oil executive who unabashedly embraces profits above all else. He hoots and hollers throughout the entire film, a cowboy maniac. He lives in a mansion which is like a museum of extinct and endangered animals. There is a rhino head on the wall, polar bear skins on the floor, antlers surround mirrors. Digger really, really doesn’t care about the effects his oil company has on the world, as long as oil flows and profits are up. The fact that this excellent film has been panned and declared a flop makes me suspect that oil companies may have been shaping the narrative. It takes a lot of effort to convince movie goers that Tom Cruise would star in a dud. He doesn’t do that. This is a smart, funny, outrageous farce with important insights into the guilt of oil companies and the governments that support them. Digger is larger than life - while real oil executives seem smaller than life, or at least, well hidden from scrutiny.
The enigma of the guilty oil executive is explored poignantly in George Saunders’ novel Vigil. It is the story of an oil executive who deliberately suppressed evidence of climate change. He is now on his death bed, surrounded by angels, ghosts and spirits. Some want him to suffer. Others want him to repent. Can he admit what he did before he dies? Is he personally capable of breaking free from his ego to get any kind of perspective?
All of these stories ask the same question. How could any human being knowingly place their entire species and planet in such grave danger? Do they simply lack a moral compass, are they professional psychopaths? Or are they simply doing their jobs, diligently keeping shareholders happy? Are they examples of what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil?
I suspect the reason these men have fascinating to artists is because another question lies below the surface: why do we let them get away with it? It’s not inevitable. And, if there is fault, (and there is), it does not just lie with them. By exploring their justifications, we are forced to face our own for living in this irrational, suicidal system. Perhaps as we wrestle with them in art, we can find our way to change our approach in real life.
- Rev. Stephen Milton, Lawrence Park Community Church, Toronto.
