Hasan Minjah of Netflix’s Patriot Act takes a hard look at the popular cruise industry. He touches upon many issues which should make even the hardest core cruise fan feel uneasy: polluted air and water, garbage mixed with plastic items and dumped into Bahamian waters, abuse of crew members, and cruise lines like Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean which all based in Miami but which incorporate themselves in countries like Panama and Liberia and register their cruise ships in feckless countries like the Bahamas to avoid U.S. taxes and wage and labor laws.
Hasan uses his humerous personal style to discuss very serious isues. Like the fact that seafarers from the Philippines are forced to accept skimpy compensation payments for the most serious of personal injuries (like just $5,000 for the loss of an ear). He touches on the notorious Death on the High Seas Act (“DOHSA”) which permits cruise lines to escape virtually all accountability when a passenger or crew member dies on the high seas due to the cruise ship’s negligence.