Thursday, October 9, 2014

Social Action Project Proposal



I believe that the social justice topic we should protecting the environment. My social action project will respond to protecting the environment. Recent topics in our FYS class have been E-waste and the article about Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley chemical waste was flowing into the water supply of nearby towns. This contamination causes birth defects in babies, and was even linked to cancers. By addressing this issue we can raise awareness about how these chemicals can have an effect on the environment and the people that live in it.
I have decided on the idea that we should show a movie that is based off of the main issue of the environment dealing with chemicals from waste. The movie I would like to show is “A Civil Action.” This movie is based on a true story and a non-fiction book by Jonathan Harr. This movie is based off a court case about environment pollution that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980’s. The court case revolves around the issue of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent. A lawsuit was filed over industrial operations that were linked to fatal cases of leukemia and cancer as well as a wide variety of other health problems among the city’s citizens. The movie is directed by Steven Zaillian and features John Travolta as the main character. The movie was released on December 25, 1998 and is approximately 115 minutes long. The move made $112,215,759 at the box office. The summary of the movie is listed as,
         John Travolta plays the lead as a civil ligation lawyer and his decade long case against an American corporation in a water pollution dispute brought by citizens of a Massachusetts town where two drinking wells supplying water to the town are found to be contaminated with industrial solvents. Residents soon realize that pollution by local factories is the reason for the unusually high rate of leukemia deaths amongst the town’s children. Based on a true story and non-fiction book.

A Civil Action poster.jpg
The movie is rated PG 13 so there should be no problem showing it in front of the school. This is an appropriate way to show the issue of protecting the environment because it gets the audience’s attention through a movie and has a powerful message; also it is based on a true story.

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