Big Oil Once Made a ‘Clueless’ Inspired Propaganda Film for Teens, and It’s Even Worse Than You Can Imagine – Jalopnik

Like the tobacco industry and cancer control, the oil industry has long known that its products were terrible for both the planet and the people who live here. But where there’s a lot of money to be made, you’ll find plenty of people willing to overlook the “killing people and planet” part of their job in exchange for some of that money. After all, it’s not like they would have to deal with the consequences of a planet ravaged by climate change. So when the public started to realize it, the only thing they could do was clearly spread propaganda.

And you know what they say: the children are our future (even if the oil industry was actively trying to destroy those children’s futures). So of course they couldn’t just focus on adults. They also had to indoctrinate the children. And what better way to connect with ’90s kids than by making a 17-minute short film that’s clearly inspired by the movie “Clueless”? That will certainly get those kids to stop reading all the “science” and “evidence” that burning petroleum products is bad for the environment. I just have to call it something clever, like, I don’t know: “Fuelless: You can’t be cool without fuel.”

Unfortunately, while many people on the internet remember seeing “Fuelless” when the folks at Climate Town tried to find it to be used in this videothey fell short. Clearly, the only possible conclusion was that Big Oil was once again engaged in a cover-up. But two years later, and what do you know, someone finally found a copy. Even if you know it’s going to be bad, I promise you won’t be prepared for how bad it actually is.

Luckily, once the director is done sexualizing a child, they quickly move on to the propaganda portion of the propaganda film. For reasons that are never explained, when this girl gets out of the shower, every petroleum product she owns is gone. Well, except for some plastic items they had to use as props, but you’re not supposed to focus on those. You don’t have to wonder why she doesn’t have cotton clothes, but she does have a burlap bag to wear to school. A school she somehow attended. Luckily she has a teacher who knows exactly what is going on.

Of course, you couldn’t make a video in the ’90s without a theme song and a music video, and thankfully “Fuel-less” doesn’t disappoint there either. And guess what, when you finally get to the end of all the pro-oil propaganda about how they’re secretly the good guys, what’s the most important lesson? It’s up to all of us, as individuals, to clean up the clutter and make better choices. Take that, regulators.

But hey, maybe the oil industry is different now! Aren’t they all working on biofuels that will save the planet? Oh, wait. That is actually also a lie. What a wonderful time to be alive.