WALL -E (movie)

I was watching the Disney movie WALL -E and saw it more than a cartoon for children. I connected it with many of the issues we talk about in class. I also would like to mention that many movies in pop culture marinate on issues around the world and juggle with the morals they bring.

     

       The humans on the ship are completely run by a corporation who is run by a robotic autopilot. The humans are completely dependent upon their technology. They are disconnected and absent with the world around them. Addition to all this the humans all are obese from their lack of any physical movement and their diets which all consist of food in a cup.

I made so many connections with this move to what we talk about in class. In Eric Singers Fast Food Nation the book emphasizes the dominance and control corporations have over our government, which leads to the control of the regular people. WALL E had no government on the ship and the Autopilot which was the corporation had full control over all aspects of the humans life.

Even though the setting in WALL E was a deserted uninhabited earth and a huge spaceship which was built to safe hold all of earths humans, I don’t think it is a far cry of the American way of life. Every month, every year there is a new version of a product and the old product has become out dated. We are a society obsessed with seemingly new technology. These companies know we don’t need but will produce because that’s what everyone wants. In WALL-E the humans saw an advertisement for a new color in the suits they wore and all of these people pressed a button to change their suit color from red to blue. The advertisement saying “Wear blue it’s the new red.” I believe this is how humans act today, we’re not living or thinking about what we take or change into. It has simply become a robotic response.

Food consumption and health is one of the topics we disgust throughout the course. To no surprise America is the leading country for obesity, The ship’s people are all obese at an alarming rate and eat all their food out of cups. Nothing seems to be solid food, or selected healthy. The habitual eating reminds me of fast food eating and the consumption of food unconsciously in the book The End Of Over Eating. The people in the ship aren’t eating for energy or taste it has become a simple action.

The last thing I connected with was the documentaries the Eleventh Hour. I didn’t find the antagonist in the story inherently evil. “Auto” was much like the CEO’s of companies. Auto wanted the people to live a safe life on the space ship instead of living on toxic earth, it was an unintended consequence.

unequal protection

It would only make sense that that a corporation or huge business had some rights or laws protecting the corp. What type of laws would they be and who would they be directed toward? I think I assumed like any naïve person, that these laws were to the PEOPLE in the company, the CEO all the way down to the workers.

Now averting your attention for a moment. For the next election, in whatever it maybe, you go into the booth ready to pick whom you think would be the best pick. You find once entering a booth there’s a corporate executive. This executive is in a pin straight suit and hair is perfect they put a hand on your shoulder, look you in the eye with a reassuring smile and tell you “No need to think or use too much energy, I know who you want to vote for.”   With that they turn around fill out the vote and send you off with a thank you for your “right decision”

The people do have rights, but a PERSON in the U.S government has been redefined. Instead of being a living human being as a person normally is, a corporation is now a person. With rights and laws protecting it as any human body does. With a new act that was passed recently by the Supreme Court, now corp. have the ability to spend an unlimited amount of money on a candidate for election. So the executive making your voting decisions isn’t impossible. The over advertisement of any one person is a manipulation tactic that now these “people” can do with what they want. This manipulation wouldn’t be so bad if the candidates for elections had the peoples best interest at heart. But since the persons that actually got them elected were the corporations, the candidates have those type of people interests in mind so that more laws like this are passed.

SBA

Yet another case in  Fast Food Nation  that displays the government sleeping with franchisees. A governmental agency called Small Business Administration or SBA is supposed to finance new and up in coming restaurants.  SBA was supposed to give these new restaurants a fighting chance, by loaning them money. These loans of course coming from tax payers’ pockets instead weren’t going to small restaurants but to already huge established restaurants like Berger King. Burger King was experimenting in locations and instead of using their own money the government paid for it and when the experiments failed the restaurant Mongol didn’t lose a penny but the tax payers did.  

This type of corruption is in excusable. The whole point of SBA is for the average Joe or Jane to use the free market to their advantage, yet the King of Burgers is using the agency for a win, win situation. Why is no one being sued for this abuse in the system? My law makers aren’t for the people but for the corporations, but tax payers money is for the government?

uniformity

The concept of making something one or the same. Kroc was the pioneer for this idea! It came to him during the beginning of freezing technology. With his fast growing empire pre cooking then freezing the French fries kept the fries the same no matter where someone went. Trust in the same taste insured Ray Kroc’s success. With that simple idea uniformity and a system that would keep customers coming back for more.

Anytime I got to any food chain anywhere display uniformity, before the book I hadn’t realized the word or why every restaurant looked alike, along with their food. Thinking about it, that goes for any  and all chain markets I step into. I feel a sense of having been there before even if I haven’t. I feel a trust with the company that makes me return to the company. It’s a wonderful tactic, humans do run on trust and how long someone or something has been in one’s life. McDonalds  being in my life for as long back as I can remember, I have never felt anything but good vibes for McDonalds until an education was introduced  about McDonalds . The problem with McDonalds it is so deeply rooted within the American culture and so it is a trusted franchise my millions all because every restaurant anyone walks into is essentially the same one they had walked into before the last.

Coble Bill

In fast food Nation Eric Schlosser brings the coble bill rising to the table. This entry in FFN brings two important subjects. The word “encroachment” and the bill came along. Both are important in history because in the time period companies like subway are taking advantage of their franchisees.

The bill would “place limits on encroachment, require good cause before a contract can be terminated.(101)”  In this era the fast food industry started to get their unfair advantages over their franchisees . They would build their companies close together and the same store would be competing against the same store. The only problem about that is, that the franchisors would profit and reap the benefits of the overall profit while the managers of the store would be competing over something that  essentially has the same thing. The bill would give some power to the franchisees who were being put in very difficult, unjust odds. But a little justice in the system of fast food is never an easy battle. The battle was lost since the government is sleeping with the meat industry. The government ‘for the people by the people’ called it’s people “whiny butts who came to the government instead of taking responsibility for their own business mistakes.(101)” So the bill to enhance the common Joe’s chances to make it big was torn away because just actions are for “whiny butts.”

Shoch Doctrine

Shock therapy is a technique in which a government uses to place a program and/or system that the citizens wouldn’t accept or tolerate if situations were ‘normal’. This “therapy” session is ideal for a free market in which the government runs hand and hand with businesses. The shock doctrine by Naomi Klein gives examples of such therapy in the U.S back in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The government was able to build and run whatever program they wanted because of the new blank slate of land where all the citizens were displaced.  

I found the concept of shock therapy a very thrilling and genius way of controlling. It is a cruel way of control over a government’s people but still very effective.  The U.S thrives off of techniques just as or worst than shock therapy.  Our government is run by the free market and benefits off of it. To eliminate such practices would the U.S be so wealthy or well off as it is? If the U.S didn’t take control and use unjust, immoral, ‘satanic’ practices the American people wouldn’t have what we have now. I doubt that the American people would rather pay for a product that can be cheap because of abusive situation instead of paying a shiny penny for just and moral situations. I propose the American conscious would crumble along with it’s economy if that were to happen.

'stroking'

In Eric Scholosser’s Fast Food Nation he brings up a managerial technique called “stroking.” The technique is almost magical in it’s effect toward people. It’s supposed to keep the employees emotionally happy and connected to their work without paying them more. Telling employees their doing wonderful jobs and their such hard worker’s is a corporate manipulation, a vial, that is used not only on the lowest level of business world but the higher corporate level as well.

Scholosser brings up a convention that stroking was used. In this convention extremely successful and famous people were paid to talk to managers of various companies. The stroking or this pep talk filled them with self-confidence and a ‘go get ‘em ’ attitude.

I see stroking as not only manipulation tactic but a celebration of mediocrity. Not that being the lowest employee in a corporate latter is so bad, but to keep people in a zone where there is no encouragement to grow. I can even understand why no one wants their job to be taken by a subordinate, but to not be fair, in having the hardest working people in the business being so ill-treated, namely their pay checks, is criminal!