Teflon was never meant for consumption. We should have learned that one some time ago. Ok, fine, we’re learning it now. So when do we collectively learn the part where corporations do not actually have our best interests at heart?
Now, now, Jim. This is a movie review, not a rant. No need to lecture the innocent citizens of West Virginia, except, seriously, people, what are you thinking? “This DuPont Company deliberately poisoned our entire town, but if you just let them continue to police themselves, I’m sure everything will work out.”
The movie Erin Brockovich came out in the year 2000. Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her portrait of the crusader who took down PG&E for poisoning groundwater. I assume this kind of sympathetic national attention put all corporations on notice, especially ones who decided to shove their chemical waste into water systems. Wow, am I ever naïve.
The story of Dark Waters follows the events from, essentially, Brockovich to present day regarding DuPont poisoning the waters of Parkersburg, West Virginia. In other words, DuPont had the ability to watch the entirety of the PG&E battle in a convenient two hour run-time and somehow concluded, “Well, PG&E messed up; I’m sure we can get away with causing six different types of cancer if we play the game better.” Raise hands, how many here think PG&E and DuPont are isolated incidents of public suffering at the hands of corporate greed? OK, all those with raised hands: do feel free to leave the room, Republicans; the rest of us will watch in horror at the s*** you allow.
Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) doesn’t evoke sympathy automatically. His stern eyebrows have their own zip code and his permanent expression reads, “Get off my lawn before I get my shotgun.” Naturally, big city lawyer and the newest partner of Sears, Roebuck, Ford, and Motors legal firm Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) finds it easy to dismiss the West Virginia farmer … except for the fact that gammy vouched for him. So in his free time, Robert drives from Cincinnati to West Virginia to discover Wilbur’s cattle have all died. Well, gee, that’s strange. Cows don’t usually all die at the same time (away from a meat packing plant, that is).
The joke here is that Robert is a corporate lawyer. His job is to protect companies like DuPont from the evil Wilbur Tennants of the world. One of their key tactics is prolonging legal battle. Trump’s lawyers do this all the time. Why? Because when you’re big and wrong, the best way to win is attrition. The guy you poisoned may well run out of money or, better yet, die before he gets his day in court. The truly amazing part here is that DuPont did their own studies! They knew damn well the chemical carbon chain created to make Teflon was poisonous. And that didn’t stop them from poisoning the waterways of Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Oh, that’s just the set-up. The punchline is that the EPA wasn’t big enough to handle all national company oversight when it was created, so it let companies like DuPont police themselves. You want to know why bigger government isn’t necessarily a bad thing? Because the alternative is NOT power to the people, but power to the corporations. Please let that sink in before you vote red again.
Dark Waters plays exactly as you think it ought to. We’ve seen this movie before – Erin Brockovich, The Rainmaker, Promised Land (Matt Damon has made this movie twice!) etc. The sad thing is we aren’t done with this film by a long shot. It is stirring and outraged and sympathetic where it needs to be. Mark Ruffalo really looks the part of bedraggled, disillusioned corporate lawyer. Judging by this film, his Hulk seems ages ago. I can’t say there was anything wrong with the film other than I have seen this already which is both sad and frightening given that Dark Waters is a biography.
To be fair, DuPont’s crimes spanned over decades of US governments both red and blue. However, the present issue is one of corporate oversight (or lack thereof) which is an issue in the 21st C. that clearly divides along party lines. So hey, America, if you love this film, keep voting red. Deregulation means it will happen again and again and again.
♪For forty years
With science simple and plain
Our lab created
A way unbreakable chain
And when we studied up
We found just blood in your stool
Sure, we could take the blame
HA! You know we’d rather be cruel
Chain, chain, chain
(Chain, chain, chain)
Chain of carbons♫
Rated PG-13, 126 Minutes
Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Mario Correa
Genre: Poking the bear, the big ugly evil bear
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who believe in regulation
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Extreme capitalists
♪ Parody Inspired by “Chain of Fools”
