The Light Bulb Conspiracy

The discovery in a California firehouse of a light bulb that was made in an obscure Ohio factory and has been burning for more than a century—continuously—inspires an investigation into why modern products aren't as durable in filmmaker Cosima Dannoritzer's The Light Bulb Conspiracy. The answer is an intentional corporate-manufacturing conspiracy. It turns out that during the 1920s a bulb industry "cartel" secretly ensured that lights would burn out faster, forcing consumers to buy replacements. Although the U.S. government meted out a token punishment in 1942, this classic model of planned obsolescence would continue to dominate the greed-driven corporation-scape of mass production, from cars to computer printers to nylons (treated by DuPont with special ingredients to make them degrade in sunlight) to iPods (namely, a class-action lawsuit over faulty power cells). The exposé does—sometimes to its detriment—adopt the over-dramatic music and tone of a conspiracy-thriller, and it roams far and wide to encompass, for instance, techno-rebels who are counter-intuitively duping new DVD movies to VHS as some kind of anti-market statement. More on-topic is the African tinkerer who salvages old, cast-off computers from the West and rehabs them into working PCs for the poor. Usually such obsolete tech is shipped to Ghana as "secondhand goods" and dumped on beaches and riverbeds—the toxic result of a disposable culture driven by a non-sustainable notion of limitless economic growth. The allegation that appliances made in once-communist East Germany outlast those made since the "free markets" won the Cold War offers a sobering indictment of consumerism-gone-wild. Presented in its original 75-minute form and with a 52-minute condensed version for classroom viewing, DVD extras include nine related shorts. A thought-provoking documentary, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (C. Cassady)