Clooney's Bad Company: Participant Productions

There's a lot to like about Participant Productions, which opened in 2004 to deliver "compelling entertainment," "educate audiences" and "inspire them to take action" against various social ills. Founded by former eBay president Jeff Skoll, it has financed over a dozen issue-oriented films--including the just-released Fast Food Nation. Every work is stirring and indistinguishable from other Hollywood offerings, with one exception: it's paired with a pre-cooked campaign for social change, complete with virtual marches, tips for hosting teach-ins, and cut-and-paste letters to Congress. It's all available through their website Participate.net. Just add people and serve.

While a sweet idea, this marriage of movie-making and activism is built on hypocrisies that threaten net losses for the forces of Good. For starters, it relies on the same demagoguery that's so distasteful and polarizing in daily politics. These are commercial films, after all. They throttle emotions like the low-info, high-moral dramatics staged by the Bush Administration to push controversial causes. But what's effective for the White House is ruinous for popular causes (including reducing our dependence on foreign oil and eating well), which don't need spin like the Iraq war or funding cuts for stem-cell research. By tweaking facts that are already compelling, Participant reduces good arguments to poor propaganda.

Take Syriana, one of two Participant films starring, written or produced by Skoll's sexiest friend, George Clooney. The film is a parable of shadowy energy politics "suggested by" Robert Baer's CIA memoir See No Evil, and paired with a campaign to reduce oil consumption. It blurs the line between real and imagined, first with its vague credit to Baer's memoir, then by alternating facts and fiction without informing audiences of the distinction. The result is potent filmmaking, but also an overblown and easily disregarded story if one is not predisposed to appreciate it. Serious social movements should rely on clear, trustworthy information, not a secular liberal version of Tim LeHaye's Left Behind series.

The Participant model presents recruiting problems as well. While most activists involved in these campaigns will have joined after independent thought, not an afternoon movie, it's those baptized by the big screen that will define the group in the eyes of oppositional organizations and the larger public. And that spells trouble. The late 1960s anti-war organization Students for a Democratic Society saw its legitimate image destroyed when expansion attracted every yahoo with a bullhorn.

Some readers may defend Participant on grounds that the general thrust of each film matters more than the details. Others may agree with half-truths, if they focus the will of the people on worthy causes. But who should pick these causes and for what greater good? Let's pray the millionaires who in 2004 funded the anti-Kerry film series Swift Boat Veterans for Truth don't befriend Mel Gibson and found a film company by 2008. If they do, we'll have to tolerate it. Thanks to Participant, our right to be critical of such endeavors is lost.