Eco-nomics in Hollywood

Kate Coe has an excellent article up in Grist, describing a press conference she attended for the new eco-blockbuster, The 11th Hour. Coe describes the string of easy, vacuous questions lobbed at the film's star, Leo DiCaprio, and when it's her turn, asks if the film was made with union labor. Without discounting the falue of the film or the sincerity of DiCaprio's efforts, she raises the excellent question of whether it is any more ethical for a do-good film production company to use non-union workers than any other Hollywood film.

If ecological ventures arent's subjected to the same rules as any other venture, aren't we implying that they can't hold up in the free market? Coe is absolutely right that if we don't hold environmentalists to the same standards to which we hold industrialists, then they will never compete in the marketplace of ideas, let alone in a real-world economy. It's a fine thing to donate film profits to charity, but shouldn't a film about ethical, sustainable practices be ethically and sustainably made, meaning that the people who worked on it earned a fair wage? This isn't about picking on DiCaprio or the producers, but about questioning the basis on which we act as environmentalists--if we act like we're above profit, then we imply that there's no such thing as an ethical marketplace, and in doing so we marginalize ourselves at the same time that we fail to practice what we preach.