In a case of art imitating life — with perhaps a little poetic license — Oscar-winning movie “Avatar” paints big mining companies as the villains of the future.
But real-life executives are not entirely amused by their fictional colleagues being cast in evil roles in what is already the biggest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time.
“Let me put it this way, my kids saw the movie, and my kids know I’m a miner, and they didn’t say anything to me,” said Peter Kukielski, head of mining operations for ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker.
“They didn’t say a thing, and they loved the movie. They saw it twice,” he told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit in New York this week.
“I gotta say, I gritted my teeth a few times over the manner the mining company was presented,” said Charles Jeannes, chief executive of Canada’s Goldcorp. “I loved ‘Avatar’ — once you get past the storyline, I loved the graphics.”
. . .
Gerald Grandey, CEO of uranium miner Cameco Corp appeared resigned to the fact mining companies get a bad rap driven by environmentalists.
“When you get a movie like ‘Avatar’ — I have seen it and actually enjoyed it — I thought it was just unfortunate they defaulted to the easy conflict. It was too convenient to go back to the old stereotypes.”
“Cameco is a premier example of going into a remote region, Saskatchewan, where there are 28 aboriginal communities who had never heard of mining…and now after 25 years, well over 50 percent of our employees are aboriginal.
“What we’ve done is…overcome the peer pressure, the stereotypes, the culture, the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol abuse, and one movie can put that back.”
Asked if he would you have hired the Na’vi, Grandey replied: “If it had been Cameco, they would have been walk-in employees, we’re looking for them!”
Ducks Unlimited is an example of a group that has done a lot for the environment, which was started by someone who enjoyed waterfowl hunting. I think that casting a mining company as bad for the environment is inaccurate and unfair.
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