Blog 6: An Inconvenient Truth

The message trying to be argued in Davis Guggenheim’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, is that global warming is occurring and that the general populous needs to change their consumption and conservation habits.

Al Gore traveled the world giving a power point presentation reflecting this message and the movie shows his presentation, follows some of his travels while he narrates the whole thing. Most laypeople would have been extremely bored had they just chosen to record his presentation. Instead, the moviemakers decided to put Al Gore’s personal (and sometimes only vaguely relevant) anecdotes in amongst the footage of the presentation. Another key tactic they use to keep viewers engaged is making references to popular culture or at least by using metaphors. For example, toward the beginning of the film, they show a short, dumbed-down version of global warming presented by an newscaster in Simpson’s style cartooning. They also relate the Earth and its atmosphere to a globe with a coat of varnish. I think it’s also critical when analyzing how the stance is developed to notice that most of the “current” pictures shown of the environment all have red, smoky backgrounds. The color red also has the connotation of having to do with violence, blood, and forbidden or negative things, which affects subconscious readings of the pictures.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Guggenheim are trying to portray their film as presenting the truth by referencing “scientists” all the time. They also seem to want to show Mr. Gore as a scholarly, reliable common-man type. They paint his childhood as atypical, but he still supposedly kept his roots by living 4 months of the year on a farm. When Mr. Gore isn’t shown giving a presentation in the movie, he is on his laptop. It seems impossible that he would be making changes to the presentation every spare moment he had; even while other people on the plane are sleeping, he is vigilantly working on his laptop. An Inconvenient Truth seems to have a personal aspect to it, like Brzeski’s film, but it seems more scientific and factual, like Faden’s film (despite the fact that Faden’s film ends up being a fake old movie). Both Brzeski’s film and Guggenheim’s employ the use of metaphors, though in different manners, in order to give more substance to their argument.

Gore and Guggenheim want the audience to realize that global warming is occurring at a rate that must be slowed down as soon as possible. In the movie, Gore asks questions that seem to prompt action, “Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now.”



As a side note:
I have to admit, I am slightly biased against this movie due to previous articles I have read:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/28/film.usa2
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64734
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/sendler.asp
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Q4prVr4z

Those are a few. I also had heard about his “carbon credits” and found these articles on that:

http://riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2007/03/al_gores_inconv.html
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54528
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

The last paragraph of the last article asks a question that I find pertinent to the matter:
“The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life?”