Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Don't Look Up.
Jonah Hill’s Jason Orlean is one of Don’t Look Up’s most unlikeable characters, and the inspiration for his personality makes him even more despicable. Don’t Look Up’s star-studded cast brings to life Adam McKay’s satirical take on a planet-destroying comet approaching Earth, with nearly every character being based on various real-life figures, types of people, and institutions. Jonah Hill’s character is a stand-in for none of the above, and it makes Jason Orlean an even greater nuisance for the movie’s plot.
Don’t Look Up’s Jason Orlean appeared to be a parody of powerful children of powerful people who hold their positions by nepotism and nepotism alone, with many comparing him to a Donald Trump Jr. type of figure. The character is the White House’s arrogant and incompetent Chief of Staff, who is soon revealed to be the son of Meryl Streep’s U.S. President Janie Orlean. As Don’t Look Up’s asteroid approaches and the entire event is politicized and swept under the rug, Jason continually proves his inadequacy, childishness, and destructive nature in such a high position in the U.S. government.
Although many supposed Trump’s children were the overwhelming basis for Jason Orlean, Jonah Hill didn’t necessarily mold his character around a person. Instead, he wanted to make Jason the human embodiment of the 2017 Fyre Festival. Via The Tonight Show, Jonah Hill explained that his Don’t Look Up character was created based on his ideology of “What if Fyre Festival was a person?” Fyre Festival was a 2017 music festival scam in which festival-goers were duped into flying into the Bahamas for an event that promised luxury villas and gourmet food, with the attendees instead getting plain cheese sandwiches and FEMA tents. Only one act of local musicians performed at the documented Fyre Festival, not enough tents and beds were provided, guests’ bags were stolen, there was no medical or event staff, no cell or internet service, no running water, and only portable toilets. In short, it was a calculated disaster.
When considering this disastrous, fraudulent, incompetent event was the foundation for Jonah Hill crafting him, Jason Orlean makes a lot more sense in terms of the film’s catastrophe parodies. Fyre Festival is one of the most controversial events and examples of corrupt executives underdelivering on promises in recent history, so Jonah’s character being the human embodiment of this incident makes him so much worse. While the Fyre Festival was Jonah Hill’s main inspiration for Don’t Look Up's Jason, the shoe still fits as an undoubted parallel to the children and son-in-law of the 45th U.S. President. Hill did also take some dynamics from the Trump family, as Jason’s over-sexualization of his mother parodied Donald Trump sexualizing his daughter Ivanka. Don't Look Up's Chief of Staff is one part spoiled rich kid who abuses his position of power, one part disaster in human form.
It comes to no surprise that Fyre Festival is included in Don’t Look Up without a more literal parody, as the film is satirizing nearly every major catastrophe in recent U.S. history. Not only is Don’t Look Up a parallel to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the disastrous response to climate change both in the political and societal landscapes, and the self-serving hypocritical egomaniacs who rule the economic elites in the U.S., but it follows the cult of personality and celebrity that lead to the influence of such calamities - which is exactly how the Fyre Festival came to be. The Netflix movie takes the joke on corporate exploitation of the masses and surviving disasters of their own doing even further in the Don't Look Up end credits scene, where Jason Orlean is revealed to possibly be the last man alive on Earth after his mother forgot him.