Luke « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Lately, for (ahem) strictly professional reasons, I’ve been watching the recently-concluded teen drama The O.C.. I’d heard a rumor that RAN — or at least our logo — makes a cameo in the series, and I set about trying to find it. (Season four, episode five at 20:17, in case you’re wondering; see image).

The experience, along with a few posts on Stuff White People Like, has me thinking about how environmentalism and environmentalists play in the popular consciousness. In the series, the character in question goes off to Brown and becomes what most people would refer to as a hippy, although the word isn’t used. She leaves off personal hygiene, takes up the didgeridoo, and does a tree sit with an overprivileged new-ager in a Che shirt (who later makes her take the rap for some monkeywrenching that includes breaking into the Bio lab and liberating research bunnies).

At first the change is presented as a botched attempt at self-discovery, and in direct opposition to the character’s past associations with designer clothing and celebrity gossip; her transformation is as much fashion (un-)makeover as political awakening. And this is exactly how anyone would expect it to be depicted; in the United States, radical political consciousness and environmental activism often seem to occupy roughly the same discursive position as, say, “emo” — a moderately deviant consumer lifestyle choice, not a vital concern to our future as a species (no offense to any emos out there). So it’s available to TV writers as an unexpected personal quirk to add to a character to provide fresh material for a waning series (season four also included the second coma episode, an earthquake, and a cheap pregnancy scare).

Surprisingly, however, there’s some more to the story. Continue reading ‘On Hippies, Rainforest Action Network, and The O.C.’