‘Landman’ series a propaganda promo show for fossil fuel industry

Billy Bob Thornton in 'Landman.' | Paramount

Billy Bob Thornton has always been one of my favorite actors. Part of the reason I favor him is because of his technical skills: his great range; his ready access to emotion; the unassuming, underdog characters he plays; and his willingness to project vulnerability. Thornton has sympathetically fought for the less powerful in Goliath, Sling Blade, A Simple Plan, and so many other movies and programs.

In his new television series Landman, it seems Thornton has abandoned the underdog. He has a new dog in the fight; Thornton has thrown in his lot with the powers that be, the rich and powerful, the corporate interests of Big Oil.

In scene after scene, we learn from Billy Bob and Landman how powerful the fossil fuel barons are. It is hopeless to fight them and foolish to try.

They are so important to the economy. Their product is so necessary to maintain our standards of living. They are such a well-developed source and wielder of power. We need them. So, it is actually socially and economically useless and even harmful to seek alternative energy sources. It is Big Oil’s world. They just let us live there. We need to play by their rules.

Of course, their rules do not always work. So, big oil changes the rules to benefit themselves and maintain their power. Most immediately important is that Big Oil funds the Landman series, which demonstrates the importance of their empire.

Landman is the story of that power. And in case you somehow don’t get the story’s contextual message, abundant American Petroleum Industry advertisements preceding and all too often interrupting the shows will drill it into your consciousness.

When they are not shilling for the fossil fuel industry, landmen are the managers who grease the wheels of production in the actual oil fields. They supervise the crews that develop the wells and keep them running. They supervise all manner of ground operations. They do the myriad legal and illegal, above and below board machinations that are vital to their industry, their power structure.

Thornton’s Tommy Norris is quite good at his job. He’s more at home in the oil field than he is in the almost as dangerous field of his actual home. Apparently landmen have little time, skill, or judgement to deal with domestic energy management.

The Norris family is constantly unraveling amid a range of small squabbles to full blown crises. His marriage is broken, and relationships with his son and daughter hang on by a thread. Landmanish work, at least as practiced by Tommy, does not allow the time or resources necessary for adequate family maintenance.

Meanwhile, out in the oil fields, government regulators and even the cartels threaten. Tommy’s boss, well-owner Monty Miller (Jon Hamm lurks and scowls as the enigmatic villain) pressures him and the workers, including Norris’ own son (Jacob Lofland as Cooper), constantly court disaster.

Even Tommy may not be up the task of reconciling his personal and professional conflicts. Dramatic tensions run back and forth through his worlds, frequently intersecting to threaten violence as well as domestic implosion.

But do not mistake the Landman for a modern cowboy, the American icon which writer Taylor Sheridan celebrates in his many other television enterprises. That hero of the old west was a frontiersman and farmer. His self-sufficiency and remoteness had vastly less impact on a smaller, more distant society. He grew crops and rode herd to provide food.

The roots of the landsman were instead found in the early development of the extractive industries. They required more investment capital and generally more labor. The larger workforces were exposed to more hazardous working conditions with less chance of their workers actually owning the means of production.

The only way this labor force could seek to control or even mitigate the dangers and harsh working conditions was to organize. Still, labor organizing in the vast southwest oil fields was not as successful as in the factories of the northeast. Workers were thus more dependent on the almost feudal structures that Big Oil developed.

Landman is certainly a well-acted series. If one can ignore workplace danger and environmental issues, it is a compelling story. The show has already garnered a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for Billy Bob Thornton. Dramatic tensions are well structured, as we wonder if Tommy will be able to hold his family together while battling to keep oil wells open and generate profit for owner Monty Miller.

But it is awfully hard to have a rooting interest in a show which bull-headedly ignores both real solutions to workplace dangers and defends the disastrous status quo of an industry which will, without change, end life on this planet. Any such treatment is not honest in its refusal to explore the real costs of the industry.

To the extent that it refuses to engage in an honest discussion of the inevitable consequences of Big Oil development, the series serves only as an attractive shallow entertainment. Landman is ultimately cynical propaganda.

Landman is streaming on Paramount television.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Michael Berkowitz

Michael Berkowitz, a veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements, has been Land Use Planning Consultant to the government of China for many years. He taught Chinese and American History at the college level, worked with Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org. with miners, and was an officer of SEIU.