SF Activists Had Hand in Making of "Battle in Seattle"

Red-hot in a ruby designer gown, Actress Cherize Theron gushed praise on mainstream media television for her director boyfriend at the opening of "Battle in Seattle". The wall paper behind her screamed not-so-subtle product placement for couture fashion house Christian Dior. Contrast this with the causes Theron claims to clamor for: poverty, injustice, and misery around the world.

"It's a global thing," the usually eloquent actress told John Stewart in an interview on The Daily Show. And worse: "Anarchists are always funny but they do screw things up." Makes one wonder what the key players in the movie including Theron, who has a leading role, and director Stuart Townsend really came away with after the years they spent making the movie.

San Francisco activist David Solnit did his best to educate. He was an on-the-ground and arts organizer in Seattle for 6 months leading up to the WTO protests, and was contacted by Townsend to work with the film's art department as they tried to recreate the puppets used in the original street demonstrations. David and several other former Seattle anti-WTO organizers showed up during the filming to try to influence the film as best they could. An Indybay contributor's photos are featured in the movie, with thanks in the credits.

In fact, if not for the events surrounding the Seattle WTO protests of 1999 I wouldn't be posting this review to indybay today. The very first indymedia project was started as an alternative media source to report on protests against the Seattle WTO meeting. After Seattle, indymedia spread rapidly growing to over 150 projects by January 2006. The origins of IMCs themselves came out of protests against the biases of mainstream media.

So my biggest criticism of the movie has to be this: why is one of the heroines of the film a mainstream television news reporter who joins the demonstrators after observing the police brutality? WTO activists created indymedia precisely because corporate media focuses on violence and confrontation and portrays protesters negatively.

So, thanks for the photo credit, Battle in Seattle producers, but NO thanks for the Hollywood hype.