Crossposted from Praxis Makes Perfect
Weird.
I almost don’t know what to say about this video. Its an advertisement from HSBC bank, pulling heart strings by depicting environmental activists doing tree-sits and forest defense, being attacked by police to let loggers into an endangered forest. A young woman activist gets out of jail, and hops on a motorcycle with her (I assume) partner, a logger. The lesson is that the bank values a diversity of perspectives and worldviews, just as this couple apparently honors the complexity of our world. All set to a Joanna Newsom song.
Its a great message, even if it still reinforces the false frame of “jobs versus the environment” and sensationalizes & romanticizes confrontation, but as an activist who has been in dangerous and confrontational situations like this before, it feels both triggering and intensely emotional to see a bank characterizing itself in this way, especially given the role of Finance in fueling climate destroying projects. At the same time, this is more of an indication of confrontational tactics moving from margin to the center of our political scene as the urgency of the Climate Crisis intensifies.
Juxtapose the above ad alongside this footage of a similar action in Tasmania, where company thugs from Gunns Logging have recently physically attacked activists, their camp and cars firebombed. This footage is of them attacking a car non-violently blockading a road.
I’m not sure how to react to this. What do yall think?
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I think it’s a little weird that the girl has to forgive and hug and is dependent on a ride home with the guy that just tore down everything she believes in. That is a dynamic that I don’t like to see perpetuated in the world.
Not that I don’t get that romance and life and logging and economics is complicated but I wish that all of those things had the guys forgiving and forgetting a little more often.
This video is weird. These people — the loggers and activists– are all pawns in the machine of the logging company which is funded by the bank — and only the bank and the ceo’s of the logging company are winning.
Is the message, “We understand you have different roles as the pawns in our money game, but we’ll take both of ya’ll’s money equally?”
this was a curious commercial and even gave me chills a little bit to see folks fighting and working so hard for what they believe in, whether it’s protecting the forest from being cut or cutting the forest in order to make a living. it was weird that a bank made the commercial, and i didn’t really like how it played one side off the other. it creates a false dichotomy. i wonder what joanna newsom thinks about it…
that’s really shady
I don’t really think this is greenwashing at all since they aren’t trying to market any “green” product. It’s just a dumb marketing ploy.
This company has another ad that’s in magazines that has three pictures of wind turbines, and on each one it says either environment, future, or eyesore.
It’s not a movie. It’s not a video. It’s a commercial. For a bank. A very, very evil bank.
However, if it had been a movie or a video; the couple would have rode home, where Bob Lumberjack would have beat the shit out of Little Green, while she cried “ok yeah baby, harder, harder!”
…Oh yeah, And Joanna (whom I have considered one of the greatest musical artists around right now, REALLY did herself a disservice here, and has ruined a wonderful song for me.