The Conversation (0)
Ariana Baio
Feb 15, 2023
White Noise trailer
content.jwplatform.com
Life imitates art, sometimes in the worst ways.
Residents of East Palestine, Ohio are facing a strange dystopian reality after the plot of the 2022 Netflix movie White Noise seemingly came true earlier this month.
On February 3, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, and exploded, in East Palestine releasing hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air.
With more than 2,000 residents of the area evacuated, schools closed for a week, and continuous mystery surrounding the long-term toxicity of the chemicals, residents are shaken.
But even more so after finding out that the same movie, which was filmed and takes place in Ohio, contains the same plot line.
Based on the 1985 novel of the same name, White Noise, is about a family in Ohio navigating their lives after a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals explodes, leaking them into the air and exposing the family to toxic chemicals.
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The eerie story hits close to home for some residents, like Ben Ratner a resident of East Palestine who also offered to be an extra in the movie.
“The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what’s going on here,” Ratner told CNN four days into his and his family’s evacuation.
Ratner, 37, can be seen in White Noise, portraying a man waiting in his car in an evacuation queue.
\u201cWhat is even more crazy is that there was a movie just out called \u201cWhite noise\u201c filmed in northern Ohio and some of the extras who were in it pretending to evacuate in the film now just had to evacuate in real life. Same identical scenario. Watch this\u201d— Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News \ud83d\ude4c (@Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News \ud83d\ude4c) 1676232379
The author of White Noise, Don DeLillo, likely did not mean to predict the disaster. Instead, he wanted to use a man-made disaster to juxtapose consumerism, conspiracies, death, and more.
The similarities between the situation and the movie are coincidental but it’s hard for people to not draw parallels between the two in a conspiracy-like way.
Even Ratner, his wife, and their four children mirror the Gladney family in White Noise.
He told CNN he’s made jokes about it saying, “I actually made a meme where I superimposed my face on the poster and sent it to my friends.”
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