By: centraljersey.com
According to Callie Lyons, those holders contain the chemical C8, a chemical used in making Teflon, and the french fries are so hot, they melt the plastic that lines the holder, leading to C8 seeping into the fries for us to eat. And that ain’t good.
Ms. Lyons is a journalist and the author of a book about C8 and is one of the talking heads interviewed in Toxic Soup: The Politics of Pollution, a documentary that is being screened Sept. 12 at the New Jersey Film Festival at Rutgers in New Brunswick.
Ms. Lyons talks about how you don’t have to worry about C8 unless you’ve eaten McDonald’s fries, used a Post-It note or eaten (or even smelled) microwave popcorn. (But fast food lovers rejoice: Burger King is apparently using holders that don’t contain C8 for its fries.)
Toxic Soup is the kind of movie that will make you angry and scared – of everything. It was made by a merry pranksters-type group of filmmakers, headed by Director Rory Owen Delaney and Executive Producer Kyle Stratton Crace. They travel to West Virginia and Kentucky, talking to experts like Ms. Lyons as well as citizens whose lives have been affected (often tragically) by chemicals. They also pull some hijinks at a stop of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and even ask Bill Clinton a question.
The first part of Toxic Soup is largely devoted to Parkersburg, West Virginia, where a DuPont plant has likely led to C8 contamination of local waters. DuPont is a big deal in Parkersburg, having employed lots of people over the years (locals call it Uncle Dupie).
But in the early 2000s, a gym teacher named Joe Kiger received a form letter from the water providers, claiming it had no responsibility for any C8 found in the water.
Mr. Kiger did some research and apparently found evidence that some DuPont employees raised concerns about C8 back in 1954. We then learn from Pam Nixon, a community advocate for the West Virginia Department of Environmental protection, that DuPont knew in the late ’80s, that the water contained C8, but didn’t make that public until the 2000s.
The filmmakers next head to Kentucky, where we meet Rodney Hamilton, who worked for Ashland Oil, and loved the company. The house Mr. Hamilton owned was built with pipe that was once used by Ashland. The pipe was radioactive. Mr. Hamilton’s wife had to have a hysterectomy while in her 20s, and the family was forced to abandon the house 10 years ago. Members of the population near the plant have developed tumors at rates far higher than normal.
One of the movie’s best moments shows Mr. Hamilton returning to his home. Wade Smith, a producer of the film who grew up in Kentucky, takes readings, showing how dangerously high the radiation levels are. The home is mostly empty, but Mr. Hamilton finds a trunk containing a few things, including his high school graduation robe. He defends the home he had made. You wouldn’t know it by it looking at it, but it was big enough to hold his entire family at Christmastime.
"When you’re 29, you don’t really know what you’re up against," Mr. Hamilton says. "I know now."
Toxic Soup‘s Supporters will take in this evidence and conclude that evil corporations are out to make money, and don’t care who they kill to get it. They’ll hear the stories of the people who are sick, and those who lost their spouses and get angry.
Others will seee it as a liberal indictment of big corporations. The big companies and politicians aren’t heard from much, though the filmmakers apparently tried to get interviews them. There is footage of a Bayer executive talking to people of West Virginia after an explosion at a Bayer plant. There are concerns about the levels of chemicals at the plant, and if there’s any danger to local residents. The executive, Nick Crosby, gives vague answers, not getting specific about the amounts of chemicals. He mentions terrorism, because if terrorists knew how many chemicals were at the plant, it could be a target. It is, in essence, a series of non-answers.
Where do I stand? At the risk of being labeled a socialist by some bloggers, Yeah, I think corporations like to make money, lots of it, and aren’t too concerned with how they acquire it. Would they massacre thousands of people in one fell swoop for a buck? No, but a gradual release of chemicals into water or the air? Well, no one knows for sure if all those people got cancer from their chemicals, right?
The filmmakers bill their doc as one with attitude, and they do that with some generic hard-rock music and narration (from Byron Warner) that has a little edge to it. Old footage is used throughout. In one scene, as the french fry thing is talked about, we see two ’50s-era boys wolfing down hamburgers and sodas. "That’s their idea of a really good meal," an upbeat narrator explains.
Attitude is fine, but so is a narrative thread. Toxic Soup suffers from something a lot docs do, in that it makes its points over and over again while not always building a story. It falls into the habit of showing talking heads piling on information. Toxic Soup will get you thinking and possibly scared, but I suspect that despite the barrage of facts and testimonials, most viewers will be grabbing McDonald’s fries and Post-It notes without any concerns.