The China Syndrome-1979

Abstract

The China Syndrome-1979’ released in 1979 captures and reflects the struggle of an American woman in position of influence in 1970s. Wells, representing women suffers gender stereotype and limitation in career progression due to her gender (Leet & Houser, 2003 Pg. 328). This is against catholic social teaching principles, and entrepreneurship skills development principle. The film mimics the 1970s American culture of individualism, high control for peoples in power and less regard for less unfortunate. In the end, there is a hope that the exposure of the safety standards disregard in the nuclear reactor will be made public which can could lead to its stoppage indicating an optimistic country that is on the way to win fight for democracy and good governance.

Introduction

‘The China Syndrome-1979’ film was released on 16th March 1979 in USA (Leet & Houser, 2003 Pg. 332). The film was directed by James Bridges, and stars renowned Hollywood stars Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas (who acts as the producer), and Jack Lemmon. It is distributed and under the copyright of Columbia Pictures. This is a thriller film tells the story of a TV news reporter Kimberly Wells together with her freelance cameraman Adams, who unearths various safety cover-ups at the Ventana nuclear power plant, which is located outside Los Angeles, as part of their energy news series. They witnessed accidental SCRAM, which is an emergency plant shutdown procedure, in the power plant located in California, where the crews rush to prevent catastrophe but the supervisor of the plant start to suspect there is high safety violations. This catalyzed various actions to bring the issue of safety measure to the knowledge of public, with fatal ending to the plant supervisor.