news
Hot Coffee
Susan Saladoff (USA, World Showcase)
Tuesday, May 3, 7 p.m.
The Royal Cinema (608 College Street)
Thursday, May 5, 1:30 p.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox 3 (350 King Street West)
Hot Coffee starts out as a look at the beverage spill that launched a thousand jokes, but quickly turns its focus to corporate America’s campaign to make the courts less accessible to consumers. Susan Saladoff’s cleverly made film uses common misconceptions of Stella Liebeck‘s horrific burn case, in which the McDonald’s coffee she had purchased proved to be 10 degrees too hot, to show how corporations and doctors’ insurance groups have made us think there’s an overabundance of frivolous lawsuits.
The film is a frightening look into the “tort reform” movement’s success in helping corporations avoid accountability for their products. Unsurprisingly, Karl Rove and George W. Bush play a big role in pushing for such changes, starting in the 1990s when they ran extremely well-financed campaigns to get pro-corporate judges on state supreme courts. Those new judges helped change the laws, and presto—the corporations now own the one arm of the judiciary that previously couldn’t be bought.
The film serves as an eye-opener into a story that has become a cultural meme, and causes us to wonder how Canada’s system compares. (Maybe someone will make that movie next year?)