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30 Days: Working in a Coalmine (season premiere)
(S03E01) "All you need to be a coal miner is a weak mind and a strong back." James
One thing I love about 30 Days is that in every episode there is a wealth of information. In the first five minutes of this season's premiere episode, I more than doubled the amount of information I knew about the coal mining industry. More importantly, I was ready to learn even more.
This season's premiere, like the past premieres, stars Spurlock himself as the episode's guinea pig and just like the other times he has put himself in harm's way, Spurlock's wife Alex expresses her concerns. What I found funny is that her knowledge of the perils of your average coal miner was pretty equal to my own. It really doesn't go too far past cave-ins and black lung.
Before he goes back home to his coal mining town in West Virginia, Spurlock fills us in on exactly how his family made their living off of the coal industry and while he may be an elite New York documentarian, it was his father's hard work and digging know how that sent him to that fancy film school in New York City.
The first surprise for me was learning that the average coal miner makes $65,000 a year and that's just the laborers. The managers and the more experienced workers make considerably more. This really shattered the images I had gotten from movies like Coal Miner's Daughter and Zoolander.
On day one, Morgan meets his boss and the patriarch of his host family, Dale. Dale seems to be a great guy and when he says that he's worked twenty seven years in the mines without being diagnosed with black lung, the foreshadowing is almost enough to make you cry.
Spurlock does a brilliant job trying to express how strange it is heading underground for a day of work. The smells, the temperature, the noise, the lack of daylight are all factors that serve to make him nervous and it's clear that most viewers will never know the feelings that he's having and, more importantly, will never want to.
While Spurlock is given the simplest task in the mine, shoveling coal onto a conveyor belt, he still is reminded that if he doesn't watch what he's doing, he could get caught on the belt and killed. This made me wonder exactly how many different ways a person could die in a coal mine and also wonder if I was about to find out.
Halfway into the episode, Spurlock takes a look at the environmental effects of coal mining. In great detail, he shows us the more destructive ways that companies mine for coal and the effect it has on the landscape. The environmentalists he speaks with make a damn good case for the halting of mountain top removal.
In the very next scene, Morgan visits a lobbyist for the mining company who makes his case in black and white. Until someone can come up with a cheaper and safer way to power America, they will keep digging for coal.
One of the most heartbreaking moments comes when we meet Dale's older brother Coy, who suffers from black lung and even though he can't walk 100 feet without having to stop and catch his breath, he says he wouldn't have done anything differently.
One thing that makes Spurlock so engaging is that he isn't afraid to show sympathy for the subjects in his documentaries. Unlike Michael Moore, who stoically argues his position and ridicules those who disagree, Spurlock is sensitive to the fact that there are always two sides to every issue and more importantly, each side has a very human face.
When Dale and Morgan go in to get checked for black lung, Dale's news is, of course, bad and he is diagnosed with particles in both lungs. Even though, he is destined to end up like his brother, he makes it clear that he is in no position to retire or find another job so he must continue to work in the mine.
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