The East, A Movie That Keeps the Term "Eco-Terrorism" Alive

Today the movie “The East” makes its premier. If I hear that it’s good, I’ll probably go see it.

            As the trailer to the film suggests, the movie is about an “eco-activist” group. From the rest of the preview I got the impression that this group, whose members refer to as “The East,” participate in anti-corporate sabotage and are possibly involved in activities that pose dangers to others. C’mon, it’s a thriller. There has to be some real danger in there somewhere.

            My problem with this movie is that it helps to keep alive the term “eco-terrorism.” Although a number of reviewers are not using the term when they discuss the film, other television shows and newspapers are quick to label the movie as an “eco-terrorism thriller” or thriller about eco-terrorists.

            The persons who made the movie involved themselves with some pretty fringy folks as research. For two months, writer and director Zal Batmangij and writer and actress Brit Marling went dumpster diving with freeganists, people who,as a matter of principle, find and eat some of the 40 percent of the food that is discarded in this country. Freeganists are like folks who live off the grid, or the people who publish Adbusters, or the followers of the anti-consumerist preacher Reverend Billy. They are people who see themselves as living in opposition to and as a correction to the materialist and prodigal culture that 98 percent of us buy into.

            Now it’s fine that Batmangij and Marling did some dumpster diving for cantaloupes and rutabagas for a couple of months. And I understand that if you want to make a movie that makes a whole bunch of money, you get a star like Ellen Page, throw in some guns and a car chase or two, and make a blockbuster thriller. To do some real research on a group that wants to or actually does go out and commit acts of terrorism would have been extremely unethical, but it’s a long way from urban foraging to blowing up things and threatening people’s lives.

            There are a number of groups who are pretty radical in their efforts to preserve the environment. And there are similar groups allied in anti-consumerism who participate in culture jamming, civil disobedience, and yes, even sometimes vandalism and sabotage. But there is not a group like The East out there, environmentalists who are also terrorists. My fear is that this movie could very well serve to confirm some wrongly held prejudices and further justify the surveillance that these groups receive and was the topic of may last blog.

The term eco-terrorism, a manufactured neologism that was created to smear the environmental movement, is loosely applied to almost any act of civil disobedience in the name of the environment and has even been used to describe people trampling a field of grain. The term had almost completely died out, as it should. But with this Hollywood blockbuster coming out today, this word receives new life that it doesn’t deserve.