Guest Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Coming soon is an episode called Spank Banks …”
Are OnlyFans models the best way to explain the climate crisis?
Stuart Heritage Thu 9 Apr 2026 00.35 AEST
Actor Megan Prescott has joined with Adam McKay in the hope that showing bite-size web videos of women undressing will persuade us to save the world. Will it work?
The world, as we know, is in trouble. … it feels as if we need a genuine miracle to stop us from sleepwalking into catastrophe. Could that miracle be an environmental warning from a woman in her pants?
This is the stated desire of Headline Newds, a new series of web videos by actor Megan Prescott, film-maker Bree Essrig and “climate narrative strategist” Jessica Riches. Released through the not-for-profit Yellow Dot Studios – belonging to Adam McKay, creator of movies The Big Short and Don’t Look Up – Headline Newds is made up of bite-size videos in which the climate emergency is broken down and raunchily explained to us by a variety of OnlyFans models.
… When McKay made The Big Short in 2015, it was a gamble. … rather than risk alienating audiences with a long, boring explanation, he hired Margot Robbie to talk us through the subject while wiggling around in a bubble bath.
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The better news is that it improves. Coming soon is an episode called Spank Banks, in which dominatrix Eva Oh names the banks that profit most from global fossil fuel projects while simultaneously paddling the bottom of a man in a pig mask. It’s a call to action, hinting that consumer choice will be enough to persuade the banks to change direction.
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I had to check the date, my first thought was I accidentally stumbled across an April Fools Day joke. But The Guardian never jokes this way about climate change, other than the occasional lame poke at climate villain tropes – they regard climate change as deadly serious.
Will the COP31 climate conference in Antalya feature Turkish belly dancers holding climate placards? What breast size is likely to win commitment to the most ambitious climate treaty?
How can the climate movement possibly sink lower than this level of absurdity? I’m sure they’ll manage, but how?
Please keep the comments family friendly.
