Gritty Woman

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Posted by Grist at 11:58 AM on 23 Mar 2006

Hollywood tends to like its women in diamonds and sparkly dresses, but some moviemakers can't take their eyes off poor, female eco-activists. Charlize Theron's Oscar nomination for North Country this year proves that the allure of such tales hasn't worn off in the years since Silkwood, but has the take-home message changed? Ken Eisen compares eco-chick movies past with eco-chick movies present.

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eco-chicks

This is a fascinating study. Possibly "Gorillas in the Mist," with Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey, might be considered along with these examples, though it does not take place in the US, and Fossey was not exactly working-class.

Do women tend to be more enviro-friendly than men? It is possible, I guess, the case of Gale Norton notwithstanding. My current heroine is the eloquent Canadian Rebecca Aldworth, the HSUS's leader in anti-seal-hunt activism.

Is there evidence that these stories about women bring environmentally disengaged movie-viewers to begin to take interest? That would be a very good thing, if it is true.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:59 PM on 25 Mar 2006

Box Office Dreams?

It was a nice piece (disclosure, I knew Ken many years ago in a reality far far away) hi-lighting a few of the films in which women have played "eco-friendly" roles.... (though I prefer "Fried Green Tomatoes" myself). But how well did it do at the box office? The last result I saw for it was less than $20 million, don't know if it had a post Oscar bounce, but whatever it's message, it was hardly a box office success...

Which means it likely didn't have much impact on American society. Hmm, how can we add a stronger environmental component to films like "March of the Penguins"? And maybe rename it to "Save the Spiders, Man, too?"

Patrick

by bookerly at 9:52 PM on 27 Mar 2006

"March of the Penguins"

"March of the Penguins" was a terrific disappointment, truly a great lost opportunity. The photography is of course fantastic. But the script should be jettisoned, and replaced by something that tells us more about Antarctica, about biodiversity, about the several ecosystems that penguins inhabit, about the threats to their environment caused by global warming, etc.

Someone in another context in Grist withheld approval from "Ice Age II: Meltdown," doubting that children should be exposed to alarmist scenarios. Well, right, we want our children to feel safe. Or more important, and what is not quite the same, we want them to know they are loved. At the same time, we owe it to them to tell them the truth. And an important truth about life on earth is that there are long stable periods when adaptations develop gradually, and can be expected to prolong the persistence of a species, and allow the evolution of new species. But then there are sudden catastrophes, which adaptations cannot deal with. In that park in British Columbia where the Burgess Shale is, Stephen Jay Gould can be heard on video lecturing in the visitors' center, saying something like, "A fish may be perfectly Darwinianly adapted to living healthily and productively in its pond; but if a nearby volcano suddenly erupts and sends a river of lava down into that pond, that fish's wonderful adaptations are not going to help it survive at all."

So whatever else we may think about "Ice Age II" as a movie (it got a mediocre review in the Christian Science Monitor), I would not fault it for teaching us, and kids too, about the effects of climate change, and of catastrophes.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:41 AM on 01 Apr 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

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