The movie I have selected to analyze is The China Syndrome. This movie highlights how journalism and media play a huge role in checking how large and potentially dangerous corporations work. At the beginning of the movie, Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) is seen putting the Ventana nuclear reactor into an emergency shutdown because of the coolant going to dangerously low temperatures. The whole idea was that if the core had melted and drained into the earth (which is called ‘China Syndrome) it would have contaminated all the groundwater in the area and made the whole place radioactive. This means that the activity of the corporation affects the lives of the people around it very powerfully and they do have a right to know what goes on inside it.
This is where that act of the cameraman, Richard Adams (Michael Douglas), becomes very important. He filmed the shutdown process even though he was requested not to. But a bigger problem presents itself here. A nuclear power plant is not a corporation like any other – it deals with very advanced and very, very dangerous science. In other words, the lay public cannot be put into an unsupervised position of power when making decisions regarding such corporations. The film shows this when Kimberly Wells’ (Jane Fonda) good intentions backfire and Godell is killed. This can be seen as the direct result of allowing untrained people access to information which could not only scare them but also lead them to making bad choices. Godell and his co-workers were well-educated and properly trained operators of the plant and Godell had a valid reason for acting the way he did, but the people in the plant also had a valid reason for wanting to regain control of the plant after Godell threatened them. The net result was anarchy and resulted in not only Godell’s death but also severe damage to the nuclear power plant. In the end, the government had to paint Godell as emotionally unstable just so they could regain public confidence, in other words, governments look at some workers and activists as acceptable and others as threats simply as a matter of convenience to carry out their own activities.
Works Cited
The China Syndrome. Dir. James Bridges. Perf. Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and
Michael Douglas, 1979. Film.
