In the movies, chemical companies maximize profits by poisoning their customers, workers, neighbors, and the environment, or they terrorize or outright kill the heroic insider who becomes a whistleblower. English professor Phillip Lopate argued in the New York Times that movies about business in general present a cartoon view of corporate structure (usually there isn’t one), making them the “fantasy villain,” a nearly faceless evil represented in the narrative by a “wall of Suits” (Lopate 2000). Business professor Ribstein goes further and asserts that the overwhelmingly negative view of business in American film narratives is fueled by filmmakers who feel their artistic vision is constrained by profit-making capitalists (Ribstein 2005). Ribstein begins his argument with a summary of nine movies about “Evil Corporations.” He doesn’t appear to realize that seven of them were companies that handle or produce chemicals: The China Syndrome (1979), Silkwood (1983), The Fugitive (1993), A Civil Action (1998), The Insider (1999), Erin Brockovich (2000), and Mission: Impossible II (2000). All of these films, and many others, were considered for inclusion in this chapter but, as the fastest growing category of chemistry in the movies, only two from this evil seven made it into the present chapter: Silkwood (1983) and Erin Brockovich (2000). The evil chemical company theme plays out in several ways. In the deeply satiric comedy Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1998), the pharmaceutical company’s happiness drug provides a foundation upon which the comedy troupe bases their humor. This chemical gravitas also lends weight to a number of fictional dramas that explore the theme of toxicity, such as One Man (1977), I Love Trouble (1994), and The Constant Gardener (2005). The company presidents in these movies murder, or hire thugs to murder, the individuals who choose to expose the toxicity of their products. Evil chemical companies are found in “based on a true story” dramas such as in Silkwood (1983), Erin Brockovich (2000), and Bhopal Express (2001). Knowing that the story is based on true tales of toxic chemicals lends considerable weight to these story lines.
Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris. By Alex Kershaw. New York: Crown Publishers, 2015.
