In an era when many businesses have come under scrutiny for their
environmental impact, the film industry has for the most part escaped
criticism and regulation. Its practices are more diffuse; its final
product, less tangible; and Hollywood has adopted public-relations
strategies that portray it as environmentally conscious. In Hollywood's
Dirtiest Secret, Hunter Vaughan offers a new history of the movies from
an environmental perspective, arguing that how we make and consume films
has serious ecological consequences.
Bringing together environmental humanities, science communication, and
social ethics, Hollywood's Dirtiest Secret is a pathbreaking
consideration of the film industry's environmental impact that examines
how our cultural prioritization of spectacle has distracted us from its
material consequences and natural-resource use. Vaughan examines the
environmental effects of filmmaking from Hollywood classics to the
digital era, considering how popular screen media shapes and reflects
our understanding of the natural world. He recounts the production
histories of major blockbusters--Gone with the Wind, Singin' in the
Rain, Twister, and Avatar--situating them in the contexts of the
development of the film industry, popular environmentalism, and the
proliferation of digital technologies. Emphasizing the materiality of
media, Vaughan interweaves details of the hidden environmental
consequences of specific filmmaking practices, from water use to server
farms, within a larger critical portrait of social perceptions and
valuations of the natural world.
