Indigo Bridge’s showing of ‘King Corn’ offers neutral investigation into corn production

Indigo Bridge's three-part film series on the environment and sustainability began Thursday with a screening and discussion of "King Corn."

Those expecting an earth-shattering indictment in the vein of Michael Moore or "Super Size Me" will likely be disappointed. But the two narrators show that soft-spoken likability can be more effective than sardonic bite.

Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis approach an analyst in the beginning of the film, who takes samples of their hair. Through carbon dating, they are told that they originate mostly from corn. Naturally surprised, the pair move from Boston to Greene, Iowa, buy an acre of land and resolve to track the path of corn from dirt to hair. It's the kind of humble, unexpected origins that the most fascinating documentaries come from.

When I hear that filmmakers from the city are making a documentary in the rural Midwest, I cringe and prepare for the inevitable jabs at the uncultured simple folk.

While Cheney and Ellis make a little fun out of the culture clash, it's self-degrading if anything. They aren't out to attack anyone and fit in remarkably well in the town of just over 1,000.

Concentrating on its harmless geniality might give the sense that the movie is boring, which it certainly isn't. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that got a response from everyone in attendance at Indigo Bridge. The pair unwittingly taking a taste test of their unprocessed commercial crop, expecting something akin to sweet corn, is one such moment. Stop-motion animations, often featuring Fischer-Price farm toys, help illustrate the drier points and add another touch of personal investment.

What they uncover is genuinely fascinating, as well. The pair track down Earl Butz, secretary of agriculture in the 1970s, who truly changed everything about how we eat. Before him, farms were rewarded to not produce surplus. After his changes, subsidies were given for all-out production, and farms have grown to almost unfathomable sizes since then.

The old farmers interviewed in the movie, who have to explain the old way of farming to the filmmakers, are the last people who remember such a way of living. It's a strange and disquieting thought.

Now, grain elevators are filled to the top in every farm, with veritable mountains of surplus in addition. While cows used to be grass-fed as they were evolved to be, they are now fed almost entirely on corn. It's economical, but their digestive systems aren't meant to live off the crop. They have to be killed at the point of maximum fatness before they die of disease.

In a tour of a grocery store, Cheney and Ellis can't find a single food item not made with corn. They also turn part of their crop into high-fructose corn syrup and look at what it does to our bodies. The result is not good. Diabetes has exploded since the 1980s, and the pair make a convincing case for corn syrup as the major culprit.

My summary of the movie is probably more preachy than the movie itself, if that gives a sense of its friendly style. In the filmmakers' interview with Earl Butz, they don't berate him. They ask the tough questions, but more than anything, they want to understand him. Butz seems regretful, but points out that because of the massive corn system, people spend only 16 to 17 percent of their income on food, much less than any other time in history. It's the American expectation to eat cheaply and be able to spend income on what we actually care about. Cheney and Ellis have to agree, and leave the interview torn.

When harvest time comes, the pair is just as conflicted about what to do with their acre of corn. They eventually take it to a grain elevator, because there's nothing else to do with it. It's commercial, mass-produced crap ("poorest quality crap the world's ever seen," one farmer quips) that only exists to fuel our demand for cheap food.

The film won't make you feel like a bad person for not taking an extreme stance on the environment, because there are no grand solutions. Instead, it will inform you about an important topic you encounter every day, a topic that should be common knowledge since we're smack dab in the middle of it. And it'll do it in a humane, funny and fascinating way.

Bryan Bordenkecher, a senior electrical engineering major at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, agreed that the movie didn't make as strong of a case as it could have.

"They didn't really press on a lot of the issues that things may be spiraling downhill," he said. "They kind of hit on some issues, but they never really took a stance. They played nice, I think."

But if that biting edge is more your style, the screenings and discussions at Indigo Bridge have you covered. Thursday's event attracted local farmers, store owners and experts in the Lincoln food community. They brought views often more enlightening than in the actual film, updated the audience on what has happened in the industry since the movie's release and directly answered the tough questions from the audience.

They also provided steps for the average Lincoln consumer to get on the path of smart eating and sustainability.

William Powers, the director of the Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society, served as guest speaker for the event.

"Lincoln has a number of farmers' markets," he said. "Nebraska has over 100 farmers' markets throughout the state.  

"Anybody in Lincoln, Omaha or anywhere else can have even just one tomato plant and grow their own tomatoes, for example. Start small."

Local farmers and stores also brought samples of cheeses, breads and grass-fed beef to the event, which proved that the healthier, organic options are, more often than not, better-tasting.