As Troy McClure would say, you might remember Harry Shearer from such Simpsons voices as Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Otto the Bus Driver, and Kang the Alien Octopus. You might also know him as the bassist from the heavy metal bandSpinal Tap, author of the novel Not Enough Indians, and host of the radio show ”Le Show,” a one-man vocal circus in which Shearer talks politics with angry callers, insane guests and top-tier celebrities, all of them played by Shearer himself.
This week Shearer shifts gears, with the release of his new documentary The Big Uneasy, a serious, scientific look at how New Orleans flooded. With an investigative reporter’s focus, Shearer hones in on the Army Corps of Engineers, the government agency that built the faulty levees that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina, flooding 80 percent of the city, killing more than 1,400 people.
The film features stunning internal memos, scientific reports and an interview with an Army Corps whistleblower to show that the Corps knew its levees were faulty and did virtually nothing to fix them. Instead of retrofitting the levee’s walls and drainage system, the Corps spent millions on a public relations campaign trumpeting its own competence. It went to court to force a private company to install faulty levee walls, though the company objected, saying the walls would collapse in a storm.
The film ends on a chilling note: with congressional testimony from a top Army Corps official who tells Louisiana’s senator, the Corps has no intention of fixing the long stretches of faulty levee walls that surround New Orleans today.
Shearer spoke with me about his movie, his radio wizardry, and the anger stirred by an American media that came to his new hometown but somehow overlooked the Army Corps’ role in flooding it.
Kors: You’re known for voicing goofballs, imitating celebrities, playing rock ‘n’ roll in a wig. This documentary, it’s a big departure for you.
Shearer: It is. I do comedy for living. This is very different. But I love this city. And when you see a loved one get mugged, you don’t walk away. Two teams of investigators spent a year doing forensic investigations on the flood, the levee collapse and I thought, “I have to get this out there.” People need to know that, despite what they may have heard, this was a man-made disaster.
Kors: Now, you’re originally from Los Angeles, then came to New Orleans in 1988. How did New Orleans come to be your hometown?
Shearer: Ah, they say, “You don’t adopt New Orleans — New Orleans adopts you.” There are few people who come because their boss transferred them here. This is a city of people who are here by choice, which makes the affection run that much deeper.
Kors: On your radio show, and now in this movie, you focus on the media, examining how the journalists erred so badly, reporting that this was a “once in a generation” storm when in reality, by the time Katrina hit New Orleans, the hurricane was relatively weak, between Category 2 and Category 1, the weakest of all hurricanes. How did the media get it so wrong?
Shearer: I think there are a few reasons. First, the final report with those findings came out much later, so it slipped past a lot of people’s radar. When the reporters were here, they interviewed a few officials, then went to air. They didn’t talk to the scientists, the experts who knew what really happened. The people here that were saying the Army Corps’ levees were weak, they were made to look like kooks, colorful local folk, which made it all sound like folklore. I wanted to talk to the scientists who knew what they were talking about, who could tell me exactly what happened.