Malcolm Coates wanted to shake his head, but he knew it wasn't a good idea.
As he sat in Ashleigh Lillian Kirby's Los Angeles home office, he struggled to figure out the best way to respond to the rhetorical passion of the model/activist. Underneath an unusually large Aboriginal Australian flag, Ashleigh, who was paler than Nicole Kidman, rattled off a series of statistics about the ecological dangers facing the planet-the ecological dangers that led her to form the organization Artists United for Climate Awareness. Malcolm knew that Ashleigh was right about the environment; however, he doubted whether she could get anyone else to care.
"They knew! All the oil companies-they knew the havoc they were causing with their emissions," she proclaimed. "It was in the LA Times just a few years ago. It's such a goddamn shame. So many are going to die if we don't do something-especially in communities of color. It just breaks my heart."
"I'll tell that to the next brother I see driving a big-ass SUV," Malcolm replied.
Ashleigh sighed. "We've got to wake the world up, Mal. You and me."
"Well, we can certainly try with your idea."
"I know!" she replied. "I mean, if sex sells, why can't sex sell people on saving the planet?"
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Malcolm needed the gig. The acclaimed 29-year-old music-video director from Brooklyn was in the midst of a career tailspin, having just been fired as director of his first film, "Zombie Poison," ten days after shooting began due to what the trade magazines called "creative differences." Ashleigh contacted him a few days after his firing, saying she always admired his music videos and wanted to work with him; he wasn't exactly in a position to say no.
Ashleigh was as controversial as she was beautiful; the 26-year-old native of Melbourne, Australia was relentless in her criticism of MPs in her home country as well as members of Congress in the United States who failed to take action to reduce emissions, condemning these elected officials for "choosing cowardice over conviction," as she put it. She had been the subject of vicious ridicule in the Australian and American press earlier in the year, after she announced that she would never have children due to her concerns about the impact climate change would have on her offspring; one scornful Australian columnist declared that the real reason she wouldn't have kids was because "she's far too obnoxious for a man to want to get her pregnant."
Ashleigh started Artists United for Climate Awareness in the hopes of bringing together models, actors, writers and musicians to use their collective power as celebrities to push for an international transition to clean energy. She wanted to start things off with a promotional video to be distributed on social media-a promotional video designed to garner maximum attention.
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Two weeks after their conversation, Malcolm and a small crew spent a day filming Ashleigh at her house. A week and a half later, the video was posted online. It began with a shot of the grass in Ashleigh's backyard.
