Program on the Environment

The story of cinema begins not with the grandeur of nature, nor with the triumph of an empire, but with a simple image: a Black man on a horse. The horse’s name has been recorded and is very easy to find with a simple search, but what is still unknown is the name of the Black man riding that horse. Similar to the environmental movement, as cinema evolved, the stories that emerged often excluded or marginalized the very communities whose blood, sweat, and tears built those systems. The purpose of this study is to understand how film has influenced the interactions between minorities and the environment, but also how we can utilize it as a tool to advocate for a more just environmental movement. With my internship at Basilica Bio, along with a literature review and the creation of the environmental justice version of the Bechdel Test, called the Edmond Test, movie-watching audiences are able to recognize environmental racism in the movies they watch. Using the Edmond Test, my friends, family, and I each watched 25 randomly selected movies from the top 200 highest-grossing films of all time. The results of this study showed that through the limited representation of women and people of color, viewing land as just a backdrop, as well as focusing on colonial aesthetics, only 4% of movies passed, whereas 96% did not. Utilizing the Edmond Test, movie-watching audiences will be able to call for more just environmentalism represented in film.