Jane Fonda is a Hollywood icon. She’s won two Academy Awards, an Emmy Award and eight Golden Globes, among various other honors. But it’s her time spent in jail cells and on the front lines of fights for peace, justice and equality that will leave the greatest impact. From protests against wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Iran to agitating for indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights, she’s never been afraid to use her stardom to shine a light on important movements. Over the last decade, she’s set her sights on environmental justice. In Gaslit, Fonda takes a road trip through the heart of the oil and gas industry to expose the harm it’s doing to the communities that surround it.
She starts in the Permian Basin in West Texas, where the crops that once grew have been replaced by oil wells or natural gas plants. As she makes her way through the state, she uncovers stories of plastic pollution that have gutted the shrimping industry and ranchers whose cattle populations have been ravaged, forcing them to sell land they’ve owned for generations. In Corpus Christi, she finds a once thriving black neighborhood with lower life expectancies, higher cancer rates and more birth defects than the rest of the city because of its proximity to refineries. She crosses into Louisiana, where she meets members of a town threatened to be displaced by a plastics plant in an area already so polluted it’s referred to as “Cancer Alley.”
“Fonda takes a road trip through the heart of the oil and gas industry to expose the harm it’s doing to the communities that surround it…”
Along the way, Fonda picks up celebrities like Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton and musician Maggie Rogers, who join for parts of the journey. But it’s not her famous friends that have the most impact; it’s the interviews with the locals directly affected by this pollution. They’re normal people—fishermen, farmers, students—thrust into activism because they have no other choice. The film isn’t meant to shame you; it’s designed to piss you off. You’ll walk away so disturbed that you’ll have no choice but to speak out. Writer and Director Katie Camosy is careful to never center Fonda in the story. There are plenty of moments where she’s not featured at all as we’re immersed in the lives of each subject. She instead uses Fonda as an exclamation point. She’s a signal to her adoring fans that this story must be heard.
The sweeping plains, coastlines, and wetlands are captured so artfully throughout the film, with drone footage that underscores the vastness of these natural wonders corrupted by corporate interests. There’s something almost sinister about it—so much beauty juxtaposed against stories about the biggest threat to destroy it. Animated interludes are woven in to help explain some of the more complex topics presented, like how fracking pollutes groundwater and the air to create liquefied natural gas. Camosy makes it clear that we’re not just here to feel; we’re here to learn. Because we can’t walk away from such a dire warning simply upset by it. The film wants us to be able to articulate why things must change.
Gaslit is the perfect encapsulation of what happens when a country puts profits over its people. This isn’t just a documentary; it’s a plea for help. But it also celebrates the people putting everything on the line to fight against these billion-dollar corporations. It’s because of people like the ones featured that we can walk away from this film still feeling hopeful.
"…the perfect encapsulation of what happens when a country puts profits over its people..."
