The Greening of Hollywood?

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Oscars-X!ArticleDetail-2704
1,00.html
Tuesday, March 27, 2001

COLUMN ONE
Seeing a Greener Big Screen
"Erin Brockovich" has plenty of company as films increasingly cast polluters
as the villain. But businesses call the depictions slanted and say firms do
their part for the environment.

By GARY POLAKOVIC , Times Environmental Writer

     When Julia Roberts won an Oscar Sunday for her portrayal of pollution
sleuth Erin Brockovich, the triumph was both personal and political.
     "Erin Brockovich," based on the true story about a down-on-her-luck
file clerk who successfully took on the polluter of a desert town, riveted
public attention on chromium contamination in the San Fernando Valley. It
helped fuel public outrage that contributed to the so-called Brockovich
Bill, which requires state health officials to report water pollution levels
to the governor by January 2002.
     Although it hit box office pay dirt, "Brockovich" proves that ticket
sales are not the only form of green Hollywood has in mind these days.
     Buy a pair of admissions, load up on popcorn and hunker down in front
of the big screen, and here is what's been playing at a theater near you:
     An attorney portrayed by John Travolta who sacrifices everything in an
attempt to show how a chemical company allegedly poisoned a Massachusetts
town with toxins in "A Civil Action."
     An EPA agent played by Steven Seagal tracking down toxic waste dumpers
in Appalachia in "Fire Down Below."
     An Indian girl named Pocahontas teaching a European newcomer how "every
rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name" in Disney's
animated film.
     Movies increasingly warn about the plight of the planet. As art
imitates nature, films dealing with the environment are becoming more common
and successful.
     By no accident, the motion picture industry has adapted new
environmental themes to old genres. As the stable of ready villains has
shrunk, Hollywood has cast greedy corporations in the bad-guy role once
occupied by Communists, space invaders and cowboys wearing black hats. Films
about the environment seek to capitalize on public mistrust of big, faceless
institutions just as did "The Insider" and "The Fugitive."
     Beyond mere entertainment, some Hollywood executives see
environmental-themed films as a powerful force for social change. The trend,
they said, is the latest manifestation of a tradition in which cinema has
been used to instruct on matters ranging from courtship to fashion to
patriotism. And as more films are distributed overseas, conservation as a
virtue is being extolled to ever greater audiences.
     "A lot of the things we learn, we are learning from TV and movies, and
people are learning things to help our environment. The idea is to get as
many of these messages into the films as possible," said Debbie Levin,
executive director of the Environmental Media Assn., which was created by
Alan Horn and Norman Lear and their wives in 1989 to mobilize Hollywood on
behalf of the environment.
     Horn, now president and chief executive officer of Warner Bros.,
predicts that the trend will last. "We'll be seeing more of these films. The
issues are here to stay. This is not a fad."
     Many producers, actors and environmentalists believe that the planet is
in such desperate condition that it would be unconscionable if Hollywood did
not use such a powerful medium to quicken a conservation conscience.
     "People need to understand these are pressing problems," said David
Irving, chairman of the film and TV program at New York University. "Movies
that are even mediocre or hit you over the head are not necessarily a bad
thing."

     Conservatives Call Films Shallow
     But business leaders and political conservatives deride Hollywood's
treatment of environmental issues as hypocritical and shallow. Such critics
poke fun at how Hollywood decries the loss of natural resources when films
glamorize conspicuous consumption, and the entertainment industry is
dependent on the largess of advertising firms selling more and more consumer
goods. And they argue that movies distort issues as often as they explain
them.
     "All the public ever sees are Julia Roberts and John Travolta as
underdogs going up against big business. The reality is businesses do a lot
to improve the environment while trying to promote economic growth and
prosperity," said Jeffrey Marks, director of air quality programs for the
National Assn. of Manufacturers.
     "Nobody sees manufacturers installing air and water devices to reduce
pollution. Those actions are not very glamorous, and the public isn't aware
the environment has improved tremendously, because of the stereotype
perpetuated by the films in Hollywood."
     Douglas Kellner, who holds a chair in philosophy of education at UCLA
and is coauthor of "Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of
Contemporary Hollywood Film," agrees that many of today's films about the
environment are militant and anti-corporation.
     "They are showing the dangers to the environment due to out-of-control
corporations and the need for regulation. It's very political, and there is
a Hollywood-left that makes those films," Kellner said. "It sends a warning
to corporations: One day, if you mess up, a movie may be made about it. It's
a positive effect for the environmental movement."
     At the same time, he said, a movie "simplifies issues to good and bad
and seeks a resolution. But in fact the issues in the environment are not
just good and bad."
     Similarly, Eric Stone, a biologist and professor of environmental
studies at the University of Colorado, said that though movies with an
environmental theme can help educate the public, Hollywood's approach can
also obscure the real problems.
     "In this field, there aren't many bad guys, and the bad guys are often
us," Stone said. "We're all guilty of being irresponsible consumers and
making choices to satisfy our creature comforts that are not necessarily in
the best interest of the environment. Environmental issues involve complex
problems that will take changes in behavior, rather than putting bad guys in
jail or catching the midnight dumpers."
     Southern California is a case in point. Our pets, machines and
lawn-care products cause runoff that contributes to water pollution and
beach closures. The state's energy crisis is not helped by the power demands
of big houses or the purchase of inefficient lights and appliances. And much
of the smog is caused by emissions from consumer products and sport utility
vehicles.
     Yet complexity and ambiguity do not make for great Hollywood films,
said Kym Murphy, vice president of environmental policy at the Walt Disney
Co., which owns Touchstone Pictures, Buena Vista Pictures and Miramax Films.
     "You have to take an environmental issue and make it fun and exciting
and light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. If you portray environmental issues as
'how much time do we have left?' no one wants to see that. But if you have a
film that advances toward a possible solution, then it's a go-see movie,"
Murphy said.
     Executives at Los Angeles-based Jersey Films, which produced
"Brockovich" for Universal Pictures, make a similar argument about their
film. At heart, they said, it is a story about personal empowerment as well
as politics. Because Brockovich stood up to powerful interests, she has
become a role model, they said.
     "People need protection from these large corporations that are really
unaccountable," said "Brockovich" producer Michael Shamberg. "There's a
strong empowerment message. Like war in Vietnam or World War II,
corporations make war against the environment, and the counterforce is
people standing up against that. It's a worthy cause. I can't see the
downside of it."
     In "Brockovich," the climax of the movie occurs when Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. agrees to pay the residents of Hinkley, Calif., $333 million to
settle a lawsuit alleging hexavalent chromium in the water caused cancer and
other illnesses--a true story. But not mentioned in the film is that the
scientific community is divided over whether traces of chromium in water
pose a significant risk.
     There are no published studies that have found a significant cancer
increase from drinking it, even in lab animals consuming extremely high
concentrations. The substance can cause cancer if inhaled in sufficient
doses, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency remains unconvinced that
hexavalent chromium is carcinogenic in water.

     Movies Can Seem Prescient
     Of course, motion pictures sometimes have had an uncanny way of
portending disaster. No one scoffed at "The China Syndrome" when the 1979
film debut was followed by a nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island and the
Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union. Even "Waterworld," which
critics panned as the costliest film ever made, seems slightly less
ridiculous after the world's leading scientists announced in October that
global warming may boost world temperatures by up to 11 degrees--65% more
than previously thought--enough to cause sea levels to rise as much as 3
feet.
     "I think we are getting some good education in these films," said Anne
Ehrlich, associate director of the Center for Conservation Biology at
Stanford University.
     In some cases, however, scientists said using fear to sell motion
pictures has led to harm to the environment. Some assert, for example, that
the 1975 movie "Jaws" changed public attitudes about a fish.
     "I remember going to piers at Port Hueneme and Ventura and you'd see
people catch a little shark, I mean a nurse shark or something totally
beyond harmless, and people would scream, 'Jaws! Jaws!' and stab them to
death. That was within a couple of months after the film," said Milton Love,
biologist at the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara.
     "People had vaguely negative feelings about sharks before, but it
turned into complete antipathy," he said.
     Author Peter Benchley said he regrets that his
bestseller-turned-blockbuster movie led to shark slaughters in the United
States. He is now an advocate for shark protection.
     Others point to distortions of public policy caused by what game
managers, environmentalists and wildlife biologists routinely refer to as
"the Bambi effect"--a tendency to ascribe human characteristics to wildlife.
     For a predominantly urban U.S. populace, the only contact people have
with wild animals is through TV or cinema, where fuzzy little critters
discuss romance, self-determination and loyalty like pals over a cup of
coffee, said Mark Damian Duda, a Virginia-based consultant and author of
"Wildlife and the American Mind."
     Game managers said such sentiments sometimes impede their ability to
control animal populations. It is, for example, still very difficult to win
public approval for doe hunting in many states because people, including
even deer hunters, object to blasting Bambi's mother, officials said. Those
attitudes have complicated efforts to control deer numbers even as a
suburban population explosion among herds has led to traffic fatalities and
nuisance conditions from Washington, D.C., to Minnesota to South Carolina,
Duda said.
     "Cinema brings people things they normally would never see, the beauty
of the American landscape and wildlife in all its splendid glory. It creates
empathy and builds a constituency for wildlife, and that's good," he said.
     "But on the other hand, sometimes these scenes tend to make animals
more human and give animals human characteristics, but wild animals are wild
animals. People don't dance with wolves, little boys don't ride on the back
of orcas, and people don't become best friends with grizzly bears."