Hollywood Utopia

For Hollywood myth-makers, the pure, dense and holistic African rainforests have
become a rich source of ecological expression. Other examples include Gorillas in
the Mist (1988), which swaps ‘primitive’ humans and the mythic potency of dams
for a closer inspection of animals in their own natural habitat. Apted’s biopic about
the late Diane Fossey’s mission to save the endangered mountain gorillas similarly
provides a suitable platform for ecological exposition. Liberal ethical exposition
using earnest didactic soul-searching often fails to recognise the potential of
popular cultural discourse which requires subtlety and sophistication in its
delivery, more so than is often recognised by the predominantly high-cultural
intelligentsia.
Other examples of didactic eco-soul-searching can also be detected in Medicine
Man (1992), with the forest again under threat. Sean Connery, who plays the role
of Dr Campbell, finds a cure for cancer within the organically rich yet so-called
‘primitive’ rainforest. The film’s narrative concerns his attempt to find the formula
cure again after losing it. This becomes a race against time before the forces of
western destruction achieve their ‘civilising’ goal by constructing a road through
the forest.9
Within the narrative Dr Campbell must learn that his wild, often obsessional
behaviour to ‘save humanity’ is directly proportionate to the guilt he suffers from
being part of the Ashton corporation, whose raison d’être is to maximise profits at
the expense of the rainforests. Coincidentally Connery is also responsible, like the
otherwise benign agent in At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) for a ‘swine flu’
that kills off an entire village.
The screenplay of Medicine Man by Tom Schulman is similar in many respects to
Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society (1989), which he also wrote. 10 Nevertheless, while
this may summarise the ecological context of the film, the controlling narrative
concerns a love affair between an ageing pony-tailed adventurer and a fiery young
female (Lorraine Bracco) as they work through a screen romance within an exotic
background. The ecological message, as with many similar Hollywood films,
remains simply a ‘hook’ on which to hang a conventional love story.
All these forest-centred narratives appeal to a utopian sensibility but seldom
explore, much less deconstruct, the ideological conflicts inherent in these enclosed
ecological environments. The dams and the roads being constructed in the jungle
are shorthand signifiers which are dramatically necessary to expose and explore
the heroic potential of Connery et al. In the end, the system is not defeated, as it
was never intended to be, which remains a dominant criticism of Hollywood
narratives. At best the ideological system incorporates and accommodates some of
the criticisms of the ‘light’ ecological message without necessarily having to
compromise or undermine the dominant ideology of ‘natural progression’. 11
2 Nature Film and Ecology 59