Government Exposed: The Role of Entertainment
There are numerous entertainment portrayals of infamous environmental disasters. These portrayals highlight the negative effects that environmental disasters have on humans. Common health complications related to environmental disasters include death, cancer, and birth defects. It’s common sense that environmental disasters cause negative health effects; however, only the people whose lives have been directly affected by them know the devastation first-hand. The entertainment industry plays a huge role in informing the populace of devastating environmental disasters as well as exposing the corruption within the governments that handle them. This is evident in historical fiction pieces such as the London Smog episode of The Crown, the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, and the novel Love Canal: The Story Continues.
The entertainment industry is instrumental at informing the public about environmental disasters. More people are likely to watch an HBO series’ portrayal of an event, for example, than read information published by the World Health Organization about that same event. Providing audiences with a fictional, yet generally factual representation of a specific disaster, allows them to form emotional connections with the event. Research supports that “the use of emotive and spectacular imagery of natural hazards… might positively mobilize audiences to ‘affectively respond’” (Campbell 60). Exposing people to images of devastation will help stimulate a call to action to prevent future disasters.
Season 1 Episode 4 of The Crown portrays the events of the London Smog in 1952. The episode didn’t focus on the cause of the fog: an anticyclone trapping pollution from coal power plants. It also didn’t focus on the health effects that many Londoners suffered (although this was definitely highlighted as a serious problem). The episode instead focused on Winston Churchill’s leadership during the crisis. After watching the episode, all I could think about was how badly the government handled the situation, and how they could be blamed for the majority of the casualties. In the episode, it was clear that Churchill dismissed the potential dangers of the smog, downplaying their importance and urgency. He refused to temporarily shut down the coal industry because he was worried about the economy. He kept arguing, “it’s an Act of God,” and “it’s just weather,” trying to convince his colleagues that they couldn’t do anything to help (The Crown S1E4). Meanwhile, the hospitals were rapidly becoming overcrowded and running out of money and resources to aid the affected population. Just four days of fog, from the 5th-9th of December, caused approximately 12,000 people to die from respiratory complications (Polivka). The death toll could likely have been significantly reduced if Churchill acted immediately.
The HBO miniseries Chernobyl highlighted the corruption among the different levels of the Soviet Union’s government. On April 26, 1986 at 1:25 am, one of the reactor cores at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded (Chernobyl). This explosion caused incredible amounts of deadly radiation to spew from the plant, severely impacting the surrounding areas. In fact, the reactor core released four hundred times more radioactive material than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima (“Radiation Levels Now”). The disaster was vividly depicted, and so were the immediate health effects suffered due to lack of cooperation between the workers and government officials. Instead of recognizing the seriousness of the situation, the government decided to suppress the disaster for as long as possible in fear of looking weak or incompetent. The entire operation to conceal the explosion was sickening to watch. Because the local officials did not want to admit that something went wrong, an unnecessary amount of innocent lives were lost or permanently damaged. “Those liquidators who worked around the stricken reactor in the first two years after the accident (240,000), the evacuees (116,000), some of whom received doses well in excess of 100 mSv, and the residents of the highly contaminated SCZs (270,000), received doses significantly above typical natural background levels” (WHO). It took roughly 36 hours for the first evacuation of neighboring towns to be ordered, but by this time a lot of damage had already been done (Chernobyl). The government was more concerned about its image than its citizens’ safety. The director of Chernobyl definitely wanted the audience to leave feeling frustrated with how the situation was handled in order to help prevent mishandling of serious disasters in the future.
After learning about the Chernobyl accident, you might be inclined to blame the destruction of innocent lives on the Soviet’s secretive and corrupt government style. You might think, “well I’m not surprised that the Soviets lied and hid their mistakes because that’s what they always did.” Yes, that is what they always did; however, they are not the only government spreading lies and supporting injustice when it comes to environmental disasters. Love Canal (Niagara Falls, NY) is just one of the many instances where the United States government failed to adequately protect its citizens. In her novel, Love Canal: The Story Continues, Lois Gibbs talks about her personal experience with the Love Canal disaster. Hooker Chemical Corporation sold land that was a toxic waste dump to the local Board of Education (BOE). Even though the BOE was warned about the health risks associated with the land, they proceeded to build an elementary school near it. New residents were “never given any warning or information that would indicate that the property was located near a chemical waste dump,” so they were unknowingly putting themselves in danger (Gibbs 1–2). It was only after many residents complained about health problems they were experiencing, that they learned they were living in close proximity to a toxic waste dump. Gibbs’ son, who attended the elementary school, became ill. Concerned, she brought doctors notes to the BOE insisting her son be transferred to another school. However, the BOE denied her request on the grounds that “if it was unsafe for her son, then it would be unsafe for all children and they were not going to close the school because of one concerned mother with a sickly child” (Gibbs 3). The BOE should not have been allowed to build a school so close to a toxic waste dump, and new residential development should not have been encouraged.
It is important to learn about the environmental disasters previously described, and others like Bhopal, Minamata, and Exxon Valdez, in order to fully understand the effect that corruption has on human health. Past experiences will help us hold our leaders accountable in the future, and also help us realize how seriously these events need to be taken in order to ensure our safety as well as the safety of the surrounding environment. I hope that after reading this report, you feel motivated to watch or read the historical fiction entertainment pieces I have mentioned. I highly recommend them all. I especially recommend Chernobyl as the mishandling can be compared to that of many other widespread public disasters, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. The misinformation publicized by President Trump resembles that of the officials at Chernobyl (just something to think about).
Peace,
Audrey Litto
Work Cited
Campbell, Vincent. “Framing Environmental Risks and Natural Disasters in Factual Entertainment Television.” Environmental Communication, vol. 8, no. 1, 2013, pp. 58–74., doi:10.1080/17524032.2013.848222.
Gibbs, Lois Marie. Love Canal: the Story Continues …New Society Publishers, 1998. Pg. 1–6 http://chej.org/wp-content/uploads/Love-Canal-PDF-v1.pdf
“Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident: an Overview.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization (WHO), 18 Jan. 2017, www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/.
Morgan, Peter. The Crown “Act of God,” Netflix, 4 Nov. 2016, www.netflix.com/watch/80025760?trackId=200257859.
Polivka, Barbara and PhD, RN. “The Great London Smog of 1952.” AJN, American Journal of Nursing 118.4 (2018): 57–61. Journals@Ovid Full Text. Web. 17 April. 2020.
“Radiation Levels Now.” The Chernobyl Gallery, 12 Feb. 2018, www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels/.
Renck, Johan. “Chernobyl.” HBO, 27 Mar. 2019, www.hbo.com/chernobyl.
