This week Green TV showed us two kinds of eco-disasters. An HBO drama tackled the environmental devastation in New Orleans and Planet Green exposed crimes against tigers.

“Treme” Shows Perseverance in the Face of Nature’s Fury

HBO’s New Orleans drama Treme may not seem like a straightforward choice for “I Want My Green TV.” But with everything that’s been going on in the Gulf with the BP Oil Spill, it’s hard not to think about the hardships the fine citizens of the Big Easy have endured over the last few years.

After all, the spill is not the first man made disaster to happen in New Orleans in 2005. Yes, Mother Nature sent Katrina but she didn’t build the insufficient levees. And there certainly are government agencies that could have chipped in then (and now) to help rebuild faster, more efficiently, and much more in tune with ongoing local environmental concerns – Brad Pitt and his Make it Right housing development aside.

Treme takes place in the aftermath of Katrina, and this week’s episode, “All on a Mardi Gras Day,” celebrated Fat Tuesday – almost six months to the day of the devastating hurricane. The show rode a lot of emotional ups and downs as characters embraced the spirit of the day while reconciling the recent devastation of their homes and families.

Every week, the series shows the delicate balance between the ugly truth of a city ravaged by environmental fury and the beauty of the healing power of human perseverance. As John Goodman’s character pointed out to his daughter, “It’s good to get out and see the destruction. It’s good. Get off the isle of denial every once in a while and be reminded how much of this city is still wrecked.”

Planet Green Doc Exposes Illegal Tiger Trade

This past weekend, Planet Green premiered the award-winning documentary, Dangerous Trade. In the hour-long film, a team of eco-crime investigators from the Environmental Investigation Agency (a sort modern day Green “Mod Squad”) investigate the seedy underworld of illegal tiger trades in China.

What they find is infuriating, horribly sad, and highly profitable. And there lies the reason why it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. According to the doc, China is the largest consumer of tiger products for skins, taxidermy, and medicine. And apparently the military turns a blind eye to the issue for their own profit and political reasons.

Ironically, this is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and with three subspecies already extinct and only an estimated 3,100 of the glorious animals left in the world – yes, we said the world – ending the illegal tiger trade is more important than ever. This fall there will even be a Global Tiger Summit in Russia (who knew?!) to commit to taking action toward saving the tiger.

We’re guessing somewhere that Tony is screaming, “that’s grrrrrrreat!”

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: Tryburn

We go because we love movies. We go for the delightful or frightful experience of being swept into another reality for a couple of hours. We go crazy when bombarded with highly stylized Mercedes and Coke ads before previews and a show.

The big screen in a darkened room has always had a dramatic impact on the captive viewer, more than a television screen and much more than a computer monitor or iPhone. And they know it. They bet on it. They exploit it. They profit from it.

They are corporate advertisers for soft drinks, jeans, cars and all of the other products being shoved down our throats everywhere we turn.

There once was a place where we could escape it; the movies. That was high art, people. That was art not marred by slick images of low performance drivers in high performance sports vehicles racing irresponsibly down canyons, egging on male viewers to do the same to be cool. U dig?

Oh, they’re crafty, all right. They even design ads that resemble film trailers to confuse us. You pay to see the movie, but you are stuck in your seat, prey of the corporate beast on an unfair playing ground.

What can we consumers do to combat this hideous phenomenon? I mean isn’t avoiding this the exact reason we opt for Weeds and Hung and Nurse Jackie and all of the non-commercial television shows? Isn’t this precisely why we curtail Saturday cartoons for our vulnerable young ones who absorb the subliminal message that you must buy products to be happy?

Now you can shout out “action” and join the Captive Motion Picture Audience of America’s (CMPAA) campaign to Say NO to TV commercials before feature films at movie theaters.

In an open letter to the Regal Entertainment Group and other theater owners, this organization puts forth the case:

This is the last straw. You’ve done a great job conditioning the movie-going public to accept pre-movie billboard ads, your commercial theater radio networks, and nearly every other form of commercialism under the sun. Now, after the lights go down and we’re entrenched in our seats, you’ve decided to expand into pushing TV commercials. It now seems the only difference between a movie screen and a TV screen is size. We, the captive audience, have had enough. TV commercials belong on television, not before movies we pay for.

Captive Audience says its primary goal is to urge theater owners to discontinue showing “invasive”, TV-like commercials before the beginnings of movies. Since many theater chains have a monopoly on first-run films in many areas of the country, it considers the practices to be unfair and intolerable. I couldn’t agree more, and it’s good to know someone is taking a stand.

Perhaps they will show that TV-like ads will prove unprofitable as they spark a consumer backlash. Beyond enraged viewers like me booing loudly at the screen and throwing popcorn in protest, consumers are urged to sign an online  petition. Yes, it’s a more civil way to go.

Among other excellent statements, it reads:

We, the undersigned, believe that the further proliferation of advertisements into venues where the viewer cannot disregard them, such as a darkened movie theater, greatly detracts from the escapism of a motion picture. We believe the forced viewing of commercials before films will prove to be unprofitable for theaters that engage in the practice, and further alienate audiences into seeking alternative means of entertainment. We hope to urge Regal, operating the largest theater circuit in the United States, to set an example within its industry and discontinue the showing invasive, TV-like commercials from the beginnings of movies.

So far there are more than 3,300 signatures, an indication lots of us are mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.  Bombarding us with ads at cinema venues goes against a green sensibility -  and does not have a happy ending as far as conservation is concerned.

Perhaps this is why in Chicago, even more extreme steps have been taken by a school teacher who filed a class action lawsuit against Loews Cineplex Entertainment Group and Loews Piper’s Theatres, INC. for showing commercials. Miriam Fisch’s suit stated that “failure to start the movie at the scheduled time and only after foisting commercial ads on the movie-going audience constitutes a breach of contract.” Although the judge through out the lawsuit, the teacher got her message across.

Images: Corbis

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