Gasland

Taehyeong Kim

GasLand is a documentary about fracking filmed by Josh Fox in 2010. This film highlights many risks from the fracking industry including health problems and environmental pollution. He visits several towns nearby fracking areas and meets people who argue that they were adversely affected by fracking.

The main way that Fox persuades the audience in this documentary is through anecdotal reports. By telling about individual negative experiences related to fracking, this documentary makes the viewer emotionally sympathize with those who are affected. The scene where a man lights his tap water on fire is particularly effective to stimulate fear. Through this process, GasLand successfully persuades the audience that fracking is a negative technique which severely harms human health and the environment. Moreover, this documentary also encourages people to participate in the anti-fracking movement. Fox achieves his goal, and his audience is persuaded that fracking has negative consequences.

However, I found some problems in this documentary. First of all, there is some doubtable data. For example, when a man lights his tap water on fire, the scene is quite shocking. But it is not clear whether the fire was actually caused by fracking or not. I did more research after I watched this scene, and I found that there can be many other reasons why his tap water caught fire. Moreover, Fox did not explain how chemicals in the water mixture might have been exposed to the surrounding environment. Because this documentary depends on personal experience for its arguments, it lacks significant scientific evidence that might prove actual environmental pollution by fracking.

Overall, it was a good documentary which informed me about the controversial fracking issues, but if there were more credible evidence, GasLand would have been a better documentary.

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