Politics: Frack on Film

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Politics Frack on Film Conservatives now have their own movies explaining why fracking is good for just about everyone. By David Weigel Posted Thursday, Feb 28, 2013, at 12:18 AM ET On Tuesday afternoon, around 40 Republican staffers and members of Congress made time for a private movie screening. The feature was FrackNation, a 77-minute search for the truth about the natural gas industry. The director and star, Phelim McAleer, was on hand to accept accolades, take questions, and offer free DVDs to possible apostles. Among them: Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the new chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, who's accused the media of a "steady pattern of bias on climate change." "He was glad to have these points made in an easily digestible way, on screen," McAleer says. "People know there's something smelly about Gasland, but people are suspicious about how it smells." Released in 2010 and nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar, Gasland turned the obscure anti-fracking movement into a populist, celebrity-and-Occupy-endorsed cause. Director Josh Fox shamed Washington for passing the "Halliburton loophole" and filmed a House committee falling over itself to defend the energy industry. In 2012, when Fox tried to film a House science hearing, he was sent away in handcuffs. (He didn't have media credentials.) That had the effect that every bogus-looking arrest has on a journalist. Fox became an even bigger star. In Fox's work, the world is evenly divided into the energy industry and its victims. McAleer—who's not the only auteur schlepping a pro-fracking movie—divides the world into innocents, dupes, and con men. This inverts the usual order, as seen in Gasland, of ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate A Cheer or Two for Sequestration Is the South Still Racist? Mike White on Why Men Won't Watch Women on TV	Advertisement
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