Greenwash: The Story of Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful is a nonprofit founded by US Bottling Industry in the 1950s to gaslight the American public into taking full responsibility of pollution when much of that responsibility fell on the transition from metal and glass to plastic by those same corporations.
Dixie Cup and Coca Cola were notable founding members. Keep America Beautiful partnered with the US Government to produce "green" propaganda like "Susan Spotless" and the racist "Crying Indian" campaigns, Keep America Beautiful touts on their website today as an: "...iconic symbol of environmental responsibility and one of the most successful PSA campaigns in history."
Their blatant greenwashing of their history must be addressed.
We focus on each person individually, to emphasize the isolated blame that Keep America Beautiful has burdened Americans with.
The patriotic, nationalistic tone of everyone doing their part is starkly stated by this all-encompassing American flag, enveloping its people.
A distorted suburbia sprawls across the scene, just as the American dream was distorted by institutions like Keep America Beautiful.
Bottles and logos of major players in Keep America Beautiful’s agenda wash over the screen as consumerism takes over.
All family members are slowly submerged in this corporate propaganda, suffering the consequences of others’ actions.
Typography is animated like a late 1900s film reel, reflective of the time period when Keep America Beautiful first emerged.