Tuesday Video II—- The Story Of Stuff
One of our favorite videos, “The Story Of Stuff,” is causing a bit of controversy after the Missoula County Public Schools board of trustees found a teacher in violation of district policy for showing it to students at Big Sky High School. Lasting 20-minutes, it’s a quick and informative look at production and consumption, exposing “the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.” Hear hear!
With over four million views, the filmmaker, Annie Leonard, is surprised the problem started at a school since it’s even shown in churches. “I was really shocked because this video is being shown in thousands of schools around the world,” said Leonard. For the teacher’s part, she was merely trying to initiate a discussion on consumer culture.
The dispute began when a parent complained the teacher didn’t balance her presentation of the film, and the film’s production company favored a “liberal orthodoxy.” Uh-oh. (We immediately imagined the board having “Donnie Darko”-like discussions if rock n’ roll was the devil.) I've had people say that it's biased, and this is what I tell them,” Leonard said in the Missoulian. “I believe in the ecological survival of the planet. I want us to survive, all of us. I want us to treat one another fairly. I want for my country to not dump its waste on other countries.”
Makes sense to us. But the meaning of the film being lost in another culture war oversimplification is an embarrassment for the Missoula school board. Do they really believe environmentalists are all leafy liberals while forgetting that conservatism is rooted in conservation? A Republican environmentalist is not an oxymoron. Leonard has her own thoughts on the erroneous bias. “What's the other side to what I've said? Unfortunately, we're living it.”
See for yourself: THE STORY OF STUFF.
The Missoulian article HERE.
Good news: Leonard is writing a book that will expand on the film.
