My Movie Pitch
I don’t know if you have seen the great documentary film, Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock, but it is a perfect example of a genre of film and non-fiction where someone takes a simple concept to its extreme to examine the consequences. In the film, Spurlock decides to eat nothing but McDonald’s food for every meal for a month. He sets down a few ground rules (must eat everything on the menu at least once, must finish the meal, must say ‘yes’ if the cashier asks if he wants to supersize his order, etc.)
It’s all fun and games until Spurlock’s body starts freaking out and his doctors tell him that he is risking his life if he continues. The drama is heightened along the way with vignettes about the fast food industry, their marketing and the degree to which their “food” approximates food. Overall, it should be required watching for anyone that eats.
My movie is going to rely on this tried and true formula, with a few exceptions and a local twist.
My movie, with a working title “So Long and Thanks for the Fish” will be based on this chart. It is DNREC’s chart of recommended consumption limits for fish caught in Delaware waters. Go ahead and take a look at it. I’ll wait.
You see, Delaware’s history as a mecca for the chemical industry, over-fertilization and industrial farming have made our waters hazardous. The way that many of these chemicals actually concentrate in the fish has made huge swaths of them inedible. The chart is truly shocking to the uninitiated. Seriously, go look at it.
The plan is to make a film that features 3 meals a day prepared from fish caught in Delaware waters, every day, for a month. During the film, we can examine the source for each of the chemicals and how that company was actually allowed to dump a certain amount of the toxin into the waterway or how much they were fined, or how much they dumped on land and how it got into the streams. We could talk about how these companies have externalized the costs of doing business and how Delawareans are paying the price in increased healthcare bills and lost wages and quality of life.
And after each of these stories, we can feature another dish… Carp from Lum’s Pond one day, a striped bass from Bowers Beach the next. Each could be served with a little subtitle stating what the chemicals that they are concerned with are in that particular fish and what the limits should be “PCBs – No consumption for women of childbearing age and children. All others, eat no more than two meals per year”
This brings me to where I diverge with Super Size me and even The Year of Living Biblically, I won’t be the guy eating the fish. That would be too easy (and frankly, dangerous). Instead, I would recruit one of the dimwitted “Corporations First” contingent from Sussex County to prove to me that self-regulation and business at all costs is really the best policy.
I’m hoping to also highlight local chefs to prepare all of the fish (including the aptly nicknamed Free Radical). Presumably they could prepare the fish in a way that would minimize the taste of mercury and chlorinated pesticides so as to not scare off our intrepid designated eater.
If we throw in a few sections with the sucker visiting his doctor along the way and maybe some interviews with people that don’t realize the danger in feeding these fish to their kids for years.
Personally, I think I could win an Oscar.
Tags: DNREC, Movies, The Environment
I think the test subject should be a wealthy scion living off the inherited wealth from those chemical deposits. They too are of the “Corporation First” persuasion. Your Sussex guy might actually be improved by the chemicals.
Maybe a superior court judge would like a nice Delaware fish dish?
Ooooo….Can I be in it? Like an extra or something? Maybe a guy in the background holding his rod in one hand and guzzling a beer down the canal?
seeing as Mercury and PCP and PCB destroy the brain cells, I don’t think we would notice in your Sussex guy, those brain cells were killed long ago…
This is brilliant! It’s time for certain people to put their fork where their mouth is.
The best documentary “Inside Job” proving the Wall Street Banksters brought this country to its knees, is the movie everyone should see. Why arent the banksters in jail?
This would be kinda awesome if we could get your subject to also live with a restriction on his health insurance that disallows payments for illnesses caused by eating tainted fish…..
I think Charlie Copeland once said on his blog that he is covered by an HSA through his printing business. Of course, his supplemental coverage is second to none.
Sadly, I think the actual wingnut position is “If you don’t like the pollution, move.”
Is there a list for crabs? Are they not affected by the chemicals in the water?
Crabs, being bottom feeders, are even worse.
The problem , lg (apart from the whole issue of “fishing is more fun to do than to watch”) is that the people eating this fish now are people who need more food, and fish for it. I see families fish from the bridge next to DH’s work, ACROSS FROM THE MASSIVE SUPERFUND SITE, and carefully pack their catch in ice to take home.
I’d like to see an added element of “Erin Brockovitch” as the people who have actually eaten this fish for years get their day in court.
Yeah, there does need to be a day in court for some of the people that are consuming the fish. There should be a sign at all of these common fishing sites that says “eating fish caught here could cause cancer and/or birth defects”.
But you are right, some of the anglers that are eating their catch are among the poorest residents.
Love it, but the title may infringe on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams.
Yeah, that’s just one of the kinks to be worked out. 🙂
My wife and I moved to Wilmington a few years ago, right by Brandywine Creek. I was shocked and appalled to see so many people fishing RIGHT UNDER the signs saying the fish is toxic. It took us a while to realize they were just catching & thowing back. To date, I’ve never seen anyone pack their catch in ice…
CARPZILLA!!!
I have just spoken to the ghost of Douglas Adams, and he is green-lighting the title. Also, the role of “Pip” the stridently gay anti-fishing activist is to be played by Glee’s Chris Colfer. I’m not sure why the ghost of Douglas Adams was so firm on that, but he was.
I just informed the ghost that the actual quote is “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish” and he vanished in a puff of logic.
Adams just told me that you were talking to Mordechai. A ghost that pretends to be him.
I don’t get it. So you can’t eat a striped bass when you catch it in wilmington, but when it swims back out into the ocean, you can ? Who makes this shit up ? What, do they think fish hang out in the areas of concern or non concern the whole time.
FBH, YOU can eat fish, regardless of where it was caught, whenever you want to. In fact, I encourage it.
Yeah, I worked on two SUPERFUND sites. To “re mediate” them. Whatever that means.All I know is from my observation we were putting a band-aid over a festering sore with the potential of gangrene unless excised.
But what do I know?
I’m just a prole with a high-school education.
They’ll let me know what’s right for me, I’m sure.
Looks like YOU will be the one eating tainted fish if you listen to DNREC’s advice.
Just wait till the USACE start dredging the river and see what toxins are released into the water. Thanks Joe and Beau.
fbh-you’re not very bright, are you? I was being sarcastic, jit-bag.
Got to get those bigger oil tankers up to Philly. So much for cutting back on oil…lol
“Just wait till the USACE start dredging the river and see what toxins are released into the water. Thanks Joe and Beau.”
because it IS NOT the fault of the GOP protected companies who dumped poison into the water in the first place… no no. they did that out of LOVE for the FREE MARKET. FBH, try to think a little harder before you …. well communicate in general.
Nice phsycho outburst there, skipper.
Good logic there, ben.
knock knock
Tango Yankee, fbh!
fbh,
You start a conversation you can’t even finish it.
You’re talkin’ a lot, but you’re not sayin’ anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?
Psycho Killer,
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away-Talking Heads,Psycho Killer
you’re supposed to say “who’s there?”
Regarding toxic dump sites, hazardous waste stockpiles, contaminated lakes, streams, rivers, bays, contaminated shellfish, fish killing industrial intakes, contaminated drinking water aquifers, red alert air, cancer clusters, rising CO2 levels, sinking shorelines, renourishments etc:
Won’t the free market and forces driving capitalism control abuses to the public?
No, that’s a fantasy.
Why? Because the rich/ultra rich are best represented by political leaders.
Who benefits most from what the state, the country, have to offer? -the rich and ultra rich.
Why? Because the rich/ultra rich are best represented by political leaders.
Who is taxed at the same rate as those who earn $66,000 a per year -the rich/ the ultra rich.
Why? Because the rich/ultra rich are best represented by political leaders.
Who would instead fight to cut back on health benefits, social security, unions,transportation, educational opportunities, environmental improvements, clean energy initiatives, clean natural resources (add long list here) benefiting the poor and middle classes? – the rich and ultra rich.
Why? Because the rich/ultra rich are best represented by political leaders.
Why do political leaders best represent – the rich/ultra rich?
Because they are them and/or are best rewarded by them – the rich and ultra rich.
How do the political leaders who best represent – the rich/ultra rich get elected, re elected by the needed votes of the larger population of poor, middle class?
By costly propaganda, financial backing, political donations by – the rich and ultra rich.
Why would the poor, middle classes elect politicians for – the rich and ultra rich?
Because bones get tossed their way.
Why are bones enough to have poor, middle classes vote against their own public interests, for representation for – the rich and ultra rich?
Ask a teapublican what makes their soup gel.
Oh, and I guess the Democrat politicians have nothing to do with it.
Is it me, or have conservative rebuttal comments on these threads gone from pitiful to laughable?
OK,fbh,who’s there?
You say I’m conservative. They say I’m a liberal moderate. Let’s call the whole thing off.
The early days of the Delaware political blogosphere were characterized by a lot of leftys commenting on righty blogs and vice versa. It made for a lot of energy in the overall scene. Now you don’t see that so much anymore, and the surviving players have retreated to their own blogs. Their extra time is now spent on Facebook or Twitter instead among like minds.
Charlie Sheen. I’ll let you decide what he wants back.
Thanks for confusing the fuck out of me. I am not now, or have ever been, the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
Occasionally I comment on DP, but it never generates a discussion, only a lot of name calling and talking points. I’ve pretty much given up. Besides, all they really want to do is tear each other apart for a chance to win the Miss Conservative title.
There’s also A LOT of “redacting” going on over there. The rule seems to be… call liberals/Dems/RINOs anything you want, but say one thing against one of their chosen conservatives, and – poof! – the comment (or part of it) vanishes.
Look, their blog, their rules. But they really need to drop the claim that it’s about “decency.” If that were true, 90% of Rick’s comments would be deleted.