Sarah Lamm “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” interview
Sarah Lamm’s film, “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox,” tells the story behind Dr. Bronner’s Magical Soap, a product as renowned for its packaging as it is for its efficacy — which is considerable in its own right. The soap is a multi-purpose cleaning agent — it’s reported to perform as a body and hand soap, as well as shampoo and toothpaste, and additionally as household and industrial cleaner and who knows what else. It’s a product that has been embraced by the counter culture — plenty of interviewees in the film can attest to using it in communes — and has most recently been lauded for its progressive practices in the realm of employment and production.
The soap’s unusual label doubles as a pamphlet for the beliefs of the soaps creator, Dr. Emmanuel H. Bronner, which center around the idea that there is one god featured in all religions (something Bronner called “All-One-God-Faith) and that this god was heralded to different generations of prophets through Halley’s Comet, but also includes Bronner’s “Moral ABCs,” a somewhat labyrinthine code of behavior totaling 30,000 words (that’s six soap labels) and pulling ideas from all the world’s religion. At the heart of Bronner’s somewhat confusing — and to some, totally insane — self-made religious philosophy was the very simple desire for world peace through the brotherhood of mankind and the proper stewardship of what he called “Spaceship Earth.”
Since his death, the company has been run by the family, who tries to stay true to Bronner’s ideals. Dr. Bronner’s vision was one of “Constructive Capitalism,” where profits were shared — not communism, however, which Bronner was not a fan of. Dr. Bronner’s ideas, though they spring forth from an eccentric and confusing source, were embraced by the family. Nowadays, the company makes $18 million and gives away 70 percent of its profits — the family have capped their salaries so that they may never make more than five times that of the lowest paid employee.
JM: What got you to the point where you made a movie about this product?
SL: I was a soap user and a curious one, but I was doing some live performance art projects and I decided to do an adaptation of the soap label for a short theater piece. I wrote to the company and asked them if they would donate soap to our theater and Ralph Bronner is such an extraordinarily enthusiastic person that he called me up in person and then wanted to talk to me about what I was doing and the he sent soap and sent literature, he sent $50 and said, “Go out to lunch on me,” and then he continued to call and check in and see what was going on, so our relationship developed over time over the phone. After September 11 happened, he called me up and wanted to send me on a mission to send soap out to Ground Zero, he wanted to give it away to the people who lived down there. That sort of solidified our peculiar friendship. And then he called again — it was a series of these funny phone calls from the soap guy, you know? He called again and said that he wanted to come to New York City and perform a show about his dad, and so I said that I know how to figure that out, but can we also start documenting this? So I picked up a video camera and started following him around.
JM: What was your background prior to this?
SL: I had done live theater and some kinds of oral history sorts of projects, but never a documentary film.
JM: What did you have to do to get yourself in the place where you were going to work on a documentary?
SL: I just sort of fell into it. The early phases were fairly simple, because basically if you can get together some mics and a digital video camera you can start shooting. Once I had gotten underway, I realized, okay, I’m going to have to figure out how to finish this project. I was lucky enough to meet a lot of supportive people and people are such fans of the soap that it was amazing how people were willing to help out, mostly based on the fact that they loved the product.
