An Inconvenient Truth

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about An Inconvenient Truth's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of An Inconvenient Truth completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 23 August 2006.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie An Inconvenient Truth contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

An Inconvenient Truth is a compelling, persuasive and informative documentary that discusses the effects of global warming on the environment. The information is presented in lecture format by former American presidential candidate Al Gore, accompanied by graphical representations of alarming statistical data, animations, and before and after photographs of glacier and polar ice erosion.

The film also contains footage of what drove Gore to dedicate himself to the issue of global warming including scenes from his childhood, the death of his sister from cancer, and an accident that nearly claimed the life of his son.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Global warming, personal loss and hardship, manipulation by government and business interests

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• a scene of abstract cartoon violence in which cartoon images representing carbon dioxide attack and kill cartoon images of sun rays
  
• a Simpsons-like cartoon in which a young girl refers to her father becoming intoxicated and abusive.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

The above-mentioned violent scenes are unlikely to scare or disturb younger children as they are quite abstract and subtle. However, the film contains a number of real life graphic images which young children could find disturbing, including the following:

• dead bodies floating in flood waters
• a man crying over the body of his dead wife
  
• the after effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005: cars covered by mudslides, people walking waist deep in floodwaters and a baby in a washtub floating in floodwaters.
  
• an atom bomb exploding.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Many children in the eight to thirteen age group could still be quite concerned by the threats and potential dangers portrayed in this movie.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children over the age of thirteen years will be better able to cope with the real life images of disaster related catastrophes presented in the film, although many will still be concerned.

Product placement

Al Gore uses an ‘Apple’ laptop computer.

Sexual references

None

Nudity and sexual activity

None

Use of substances

One reference, intended to be a joke, to an old school friend becoming a drug addict.

Coarse language

None

The movie's message

An Inconvenient Truth is a. powerful, entertaining and informative documentary. The message is that if nothing is done in the next ten years, an unstoppable slide will have begun ensuring the destruction of our civilisation along with most of the other species on the planet. This movie could give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children the issue of global warming and what can be done at home and in the wider community to address the issue.