I watched Big Miracle on the plane today flying home after another brutal semester learning about environmental policy. I’ve avoided this movie like the plague because I was sure it was an ode to the magnanimous awesomeness of America, and our commitment to save these three majestic creatures from a cold watery death. How dare we (America, the West, humans?) be so facetious to pretend we care about nature as we systematically plunder and destroy it? But I suppose the lives of a few charismatic megafauna are a prime example of humanity’s ability to care about finite things that have cute faces and are in front of us. It’s not that we don’t care about these things, we’re powerless to stop the pervasive diffuse nature of ecosystem destruction, it’s just too esoteric and distant from our daily lives to be addressed. I assumed that Big Miracle would be like Avatar, where you’re meant to identify with the aliens, but clearly humans are represented by the technocratic death ship plundering natural resources at the expense of irreplaceable ecosystem services and a spiritual connection with nature. And, I’m pretty sure the story ended less well for the Great Plains Indians than it did for the blue people.
So I started watching with an eye to panning this trite distraction from endemic threats to the planet. How was I so wrong? I’m tempted to make this a must see for environmental policy students about the cold harsh reality of working for eco-justice in a world driven by naked avarice and corporate kleptocracy. Drew Barrymore is our intrepid Greenpeace director, fighting for every dung beetle in the area, when she finds out that three whales are trapped in the Arctic Circle because of an early freeze to the ice (*probably won’t be a problem in the future, you’re welcome, whales).
The movie opens with her publicly shaming an oil tycoon, Ted Danson, in a public hearing, arguing ecosystem services and species destruction need to be equally valued when bidding on drilling and development. It doesn’t hurt her street cred that she’s yelling at him through a bullhorn while dressed to the nines until being physically removed by security. Why have I never done this? Have I not lived?
Her personal journey to free the whales leads her to asking for help from a number of strange bedfellows, including her ex (the adorable yet predictable yet still adorable John Krasinski, the National Guard, the oil baron she spanked, the government (since it was Reagan, definitely a hard pill to swallow), and then eventually the Russians. It’s a lesson in, playing the ratings and the public, accepting the poison pills that are necessary, pursuing diplomacy, and when all else fails never ever EVER fucking give up, and if they try to make you start screaming truth words at them until you’re escorted out. Damn, that is one assertive woman.
The reason this movie isn’t another empty shell of green-washing masturbation by the movie industry? – the naked honesty of the dialogue surrounding characters’ motivations. Everyone’s motivated by their own selfish endgames, and it just happens to work out in the whales’ favor. Drew Barrymore does a masterful job manipulating television ratings, men and capitalism – subverting it all for one moment, to save three whales. To be fair, doing PR for Greenpeace is also her job, and a dues-collecting organization that relies on public support. So although I think that her motivation is pure and correct, it’s not necessarily any more altruistic than anyone else’s, except you only work for Greenpeace if you’re desperately committed to saving the environment from human destruction (see their hours and salaries if you don’t believe me), so yeah, I do still think she’s better. And her character’s ability to leverage public opinion to further environmental justice should get turned into a playbook.
Why does the oil tycoon help this bizarre rescue effort? Well, partly because his wife does the most skillful ‘it was your idea sweetie’ manipulation I’ve ever seen on him that maybe he should help out for the good press… “Imagine what they’d think if you helped out… hmmmm. What could a little boat like that cost anyway….” Yes wifey, work it! She also tips off Greenpeace that he has an icebreaking barge that should get called into service (true story? I wish….). So yeah, he’s definitely for the PR. He wants to drill ANWAR, and figures it’s the best path to access. It pays off for the bastard too, he closes the Exxon Valdez Prudhoe Bay cleanup work, and in the outro is toasting with his robber baron buddies, “to Valdez – the gift that keeps on giving.” Charming, I’m sure, hope you enjoy the weather in hell. But does it matter? I’m not sure I would advocate launching that kind of an international effort to save a few whales, but until Paris Hilton is banned from doing anything that emits carbon (or any other waste of space celebrity jet-setting to their freakishly worthless lives) I’m okay with mobilizing a few icebreaking boats to save some sentient mammals.
The reporters are there for the story – as America starts to tune in to the whales’ plight, so does ABC, sending Kristen Bell to chase her dream of making it to the networks. “If it bleeds, it leads” is definitely the mantra, as ratings drive the coverage instead of any actual concern about full truthful coverage. As she points out at one low moment – “did you know there’s 30 wars going on in the world right now?
Ronald Reagan and the National Guard get in for the same reason – George Bush Sr is running for office, and they’re trying to lock down the election. As Drew so succinctly puts it, ‘you’re here to try and cover up all the parts of Reagan’s legacy that aren’t playing that well on the campaign trail.’ When the White House rep comes back with ‘you’re probably bringing in money hand over fist with this whale situation at Greenpeace’ the immediate answer? ‘We’ll need every penny to undo the environmental destruction you’ve been waging for the past eight years!’ ‘Oh, you mean the booming economy?’ ‘At the expense of everything else.’ Smackdown!
The Minnesotan entrepreneurs with a harbor deicing machine show up hoping for some free publicity, and end up actually saving the whales – or at least buying them more time – in the 11th hour. But definitely only showed up for the PR patrol as well.
And who ends up saving the day? The freaking USSR! Get outta town, I’m gonna have to google all over that once I’m back on the hard. Yep, Gorbachov sends us some glasnost and perestroika, and the Russian icebreaking ship comes over and breaches the shit out of this ice wall blocking the whales’ escape. How does Drew Barrymore singlehandedly convince Reagan’s administration to take this outstretched hand, not knowing whether it might have a joke buzzer or something even worse? Leveraging public opinion and unleashing her righteous anger. ‘If you let those whales die, where are all those schoolchildren and heartbroken men and women going to look for answers, and someone to blame? Because you know they always do. And they’ll believe the nice trustworthy lady at Greenpeace. And you know what I’ll tell them? That President Reagan killed those whales. There goes your legacy, the election, everything. Is that an option you can recommend?’ Booyakasha, game set match!
So in the end, the baby dies (pretty sure they wouldn’t have included this in the sanitized Hollywood version if it wasn’t based on real life events), but the parents live, and the day is saved, and Drew Barrymore gets to make out with John Krasinski, which I’m pretty sure was at least 20% of the point of this movie anyway.
But what lessons can be garnered from this interesting exploration of environmentalism’s uphill battle? The idea of allowing captains of capitalism to spend the profits they made exploiting collective resources on rescuing endangered individual animals and then get lauded for it is absurdly upsetting. Is this the beginning of the Public Private Partnerships that have morphed into Blackwater in Iraq, privatizing the prisons, now the schools, and in the future – the entire US government? Is letting the fox watch the henhouse, or oil magnates clean up oil spills, really the best way we can think of to address these issues? I say if we’re looking for cost-cutting measures, just get rid of the henhouse entirely, it’s pointless – although I guess it could be good for keeping the hens from escaping as you slowly massacre them one by one…
Back to Big Miracle though, it’s painful how realistic the depiction is of the competing forces that end up miraculously (literally) morphing into a positive outcome for this one whale couple. Sure, we’ll all save the cute ones, as long as it’s not something that begs real systemic change, or personal sacrifice. How can we channel this finite willingness to help fix big global problems? I’m not sure but after watching this movie I definitely want to be an environmental warrior, and I probably won’t even need the bullhorn!