Until this year, if you asked someone on the street to name a large oil spill and a company involved, chances are they would have been stumped, perhaps groping for the name of that tanker in the ‘90s. Or was it still the ‘80s?

Even with news coverage, documentaries, This American Life episodes, and Congressional hearings, many corporate disasters don’t really resonate with the public like a murder might. Bad PR can only get so bad with insidery and technical speed bumps that only make sense to the industries in which they occur.

This often means less blame and public outcry directed at corporate honchos, because it’s hard to get truly mad at things you don’t understand.

Unless, say, Hollywood decides to make a movie about it.

The new Mark Wahlberg movie,“Deepwater Horizon” (and it is extremely Mark Wahlberg, mind you), is the latest example of this genre—the Corporate Disaster Movie that puts complex events into terms we can all understand. It’s like a brainy version of the true crime genre, that latest of which was director Adam McKay’s “The Big Short,” which dealt with the financial crisis. There’s been a few in the past too, like Michael Mann’s tobacco industry movie “The Insider,” and Stephen Soderbergh’s “Erin Brockovich,” about her fight against the misdeeds of PG&E (PGE).

Directed by Peter Berg, “Deepwater Horizon” dramatizes the events that led up to the largest accidental spill in the US oil industry, which claimed 11 lives in an explosive fire on a floating offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon. Based on a New York Times article that told the story through countless interviews, testimony, and reports, petroleum company BP and, to an extent, rig owner Transocean do not come out looking good.

In these latest two examples, the films come years after the incidents themselves, boomeranging back into the public view to reignite anger once again—or in some cases, light it for the first time. In the case of “The Big Short,” many people who considered themselves “informed” couldn’t really explain the house of cards the subprime mortgage and bond markets had built or the ignominious roles of the big banks who the government bailed out. As McKay knew, simple, digestible ways of explaining these eye-glazing concepts must be utilized.

For many people “Deepwater Horizon” didn’t really carry much currency insofar as name recognition—even though it takes place on an oil rig with action and explosions by the guy who made “Battleship.” In fact, Uproxx’s film critic Mike Ryan said, “I didn’t think we needed a movie about this subject.” But the movie turned him around: “I’ve changed my mind. And, if nothing else, I hope it gets people angry again, because the people who did this to our planet, and killed 11 people in the process, got off too easy.”

(To that end – unsurprisingly – the corporate players absolutely abhor this genre. After issuing a terse 104-word statement, BP stonewalled me, ignoring calls, tweets, and emails asking for more detailed grievances against the film.)

While it may not particularly be a “good film,” the Corporate Disaster Movie operates apart from its own quality, because it takes on greater role by providing the public with a service most other forms of media cannot.

First, it’s a thorough explainer. Traditionally, it’s had a history of being overlooked by the newspapers, who usually put the context in the story itself, an efficient move to save ink but less reader friendly. But unlike most contemporary explainers, a film’s execution years in the rearview gives it the ability to editorialize further, and give good reason for those decisions by pointing to investigations, lawsuits, and criminal charges after the fact.

But perhaps even more than all that, the Corporate Disaster Movie gives the public a chance to check back in and ask exactly how we’re doing at making sure everybody is holding up their end of the deal when they say “never again.”
With the focus of today’s moving-picture culture gravitating towards TV, relegating movies to sequels, superhero movies, remakes, and remakes of superhero movies (ahem, “Spider-Man”), the Corporate Disaster Movie actually has a good chance of cementing its place in 21st century cinema. Like those other genres, it already has some name recognition, from the news at least, connection to the real world, and the potential for viral outrage over corporate bad behavior that Bernie Sanders and Occupy Wall Street harnessed so well (at least for a time), though it usually provides nothing more than catharsis. There’s sure to be more to come.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumerism, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.

Read more:

Amazon’s free stuff policy wrecks its reviews

Where is the $60 million Wells Fargo clawed back from its executives going?

Basic math shows why chip cards are sending ripples through retail

Beware these risks before using Facebook’s new Marketplace

Google’s new Pixel phone has a huge advantage over other Android phones