The Cove

[Christine Marran]

>
>
> During the Q & A following the screening, though, O'Barry had a very 
> different tone. As I recall, he didn't say much of anything about the 
> film's animal rights appeal, he didn't try to elaborate or reinforce 
> it, and one might say that he even seemed to distance himself from it. 
> Instead, he hammered on the mercury problem and its global dimensions. 
> For O'Barry, there was more or less a direct line from Minamata to 
> Taiji, and he emphasized that this was the real import of the film. He 
> held up a recent book on the Niigata Minamata disease by book by Sait? 
> Hisashi that had just been published last September: 
> <http://sites.google.com/site/niigataminamata/> (I haven't checked it, 
> but this might be one of the most recent significant works on the 
> problem). O'Barry's message to the assembled journalists was 
> basically: "it's your job to investigate this -- get going."
Yes, Ric O'Barry had been moving away from "animal welfare" framing of 
the problem toward mercury poisoning years before the release of the 
film.  It is a good strategy because it ties into all sorts of global 
environmental issues as you suggest, Mark.
>
>
> I can't say that I've taken an exhaustive look at the recent press 
> coverage, but in what I've seen it's striking that the focus is more 
> on the issue of cultural sensitivity than the rather more serious 
> problem of rising mercury levels in the global food supply.
I agree.  It is my sense that this phenomenon of attention to cultural 
difference over  environmental practice can occur for any number of 
reasons but a couple might be that (a) the press seeks a readership and 
develops the easiest route toward "controversy" and (b) it is a strategy 
for groups to protect local controversial practices (such as live pigeon 
shooting in the US and bullfighting).

-cm


-- 
Christine L. Marran
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Cultural Studies
Department of Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Minnesota