Blog Post 5

The film Dark Waters is a compelling story about an environmental justice case in which chemical giant Dupont poisoned hundreds of thousands of people with no regard for human life. This movie appeals to viewers of all demographics by detailing the story of how this problem came to light form start to finish in the form of a drama/thriller. The components needed to make a strong film about an EJ problem generally include a problem, some form of corruption, and a mistreated party. This film checks all of those boxes.

I feel this film was very successful in delivering a message to its audience. After doing some additional research, I found that the majority of events that took place in this film were true. But why is it that I had never heard about this EJ problem before? It clearly effects a large group of people. Could Dupont have played a role in limiting the national media coverage of this problem? The goal of this film was to let the people know what the chemical giants operating in our world today are up to, and just how far they will go to make profit.

To drive home the message that these companies care more about profits than people, the producers of this film included some shocking real life events that took place. During the testing trial of teflon, Dupont gave its employees cigarettes laced with the chemical C8 to conduct a real life human experiment to find out how hazardous it really was. All of these employees wound up in the hospital. They also conducted tests on pregnant women to see if C8 caused birth defects, and found out that it did indeed. After conducting these experiments the results did not fit there agenda of profiting $1 Billion per year so they swept it all under the rug. Furthermore, they began disposing of the chemical waste in unsafe manors that eventually led to the contamination of the drinking water of thousands, leading to wide spread health defects.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of us have been exposed to this chemical at some point due to its wide spread use in many products. At the end of the film it was revealed that 99% of humans are believed to have this chemical within our blood stream. The bad news is, we likely will never get rid of it because it cannot break down biologically for our bodies to dispose of it. So, if you’ve used teflon products in your lifetime (you have,) this is likely your EJ problem as well.

Basically, all of the events portrayed in this film were eye opening to say the least. This is not something I would have expected to be actively going on in our country. Due to these unbelievable events, I would say that this is the most powerful EJ film that I have ever viewed.