AcocellaCorporation

1. Title: The Corporation; Director: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot; Release Year: 2003

2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? The film’s main objective is to demonstrate how the corporation has grown from its beginnings and has become an actual person under the law, with rights of its own. It uses a wide variety of examples to show how the corporation basically runs our lives, determining what we eat, drink, do with our free time and even determining what goods and services we want.

3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? One of the sustainability problems that the film points out is how the corporation is legally obligated to make “the bottom line” its number one priority. This means that it must protect itself and that every decision made must be helping it profit. This also means that sometimes it is more cost effective not to follow the law. This creates an excuse for corporations to break the law and not have really terrible repercussions. Many times, they are fined and allowed to continue their practices.

Another issue discussed is externalization. The company is always being pressured to deliver results and externalize costs to make things cheaper for them. Usually this third party in externalizing gets the short end of the stick so to speak and the corporation’s problems are now their problems.

Yet another sustainability problem in the film is how corporations use and abuse the environment. Coal, oil and other natural resources are being over used and polluted back into the environment by big businesses in industry. In addition, corporations produce a lot of waste. This waste has to go somewhere. Landfills are filling at staggering rates. “The environment is going to have to become a commodity for the economy to have to begin to care.”

Media is another sustainability issue. When Canadian Health found that Monsanto had lied to the FDA about its bovine growth hormone use, the story was to air on Fox News. Monsanto then began to threaten the station and the reporters were told they had to skew the findings. When they refused to comply, they were fired and the story was not aired. RBGH is still used in U.S. milk. This shows that the strength of just one company can pressure the media to present false information to the public to protect its reputation. It is scary to think how much the public does not know about what corporations hide from us to protect their “bottom line.”

4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? I was very compelled and even shocked about the Monsanto and Fox News story explained above. I was also very interested to watch when Michael Moore was talking with the CEO of Nike. When asked if he had ever been to India, where his company has factories, the CEO said that he had not. Then when Moore told him he already had plane tickets to India and asked the CEO if he would come with him, he refused, saying he had something like a tennis tournament he had to go to. He then invited Moore to one of his events. This obvious attempt to avoid seeing the sweatshops and teenagers that his company employed just demonstrated once again how out of touch some of these heads of corporations are with what is actually going on within their companies.

5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why? I don’t think that I am very convinced by the information about how corporations trade with some terrorist groups. Of course I don’t think corporations should be helping our enemies but I think that the example given may not have been the corporation’s fault. Yes, IBM sold its punch card technology to Hitler for the organization of his Holocaust prisoners. But they did not necessarily know what he was using them for. It is not really a corporation’s fault if its product is used for purposes that it does not agree with.

6. What audience does this film best address? Why? I think this film is meant for everybody. It has information that I have not seen in other places. It addresses a large number of sustainability issues in a well organized way that would be informative for people of all education levels starting at high school age. It uses a large variety of case studies and experts on different topics. I think it is especially good for the high school and college aged students who are just starting out in the work force and should be aware of the impacts of their decisions. I do however think that if the film were to be shown to high school students, it should be shorted a bit.

7. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value? I think it would have been better if the film had included some examples of sustainable corporations. I don’t believe that all corporations are evil. I think it also seemed to define corporations as large corporations. It did not explain the difference between big business and smaller companies. They did interview Ray Anderson, the increasingly sustainable carpet manufacturer, but I would have liked to see more people like him interviewed. This could have also made the film more easily digestible by people who do support large corporations.

8. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested in the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action that you can imagine being effective? The film asks that we become informed about corporations and not to believe everything they tell us. We need to act like the reporters who stood up to corporations in order to get correct information to the public. We should also support companies like Ray Anderson’s company that are doing their best to implement sustainable business practices. We also can bring about change by not supporting corporations that we do not agree with. Again, be informed about what these companies are doing and do not support them by buying their products if they have questionable practices, such as the use of sweatshops to make their products.

In addition, we can also buy locally and support small businesses that do not violate human rights or the law. I think that corporations should be held more accountable for their actions as well. I don’t think just making them pay a fine for breaking laws is enough. Advertising and letting the public know what they have done is very important because that can affect sales. If a company gets sued and has to pay a large amount of money, that’s one thing, but a company’s reputation is very important, as was demonstrated by Monsanto when they went out of their way to ensure that the story about their deception to the FDA did not get out.

9. What additional information has the film compelled you to seek out? (Two supporting references) I wanted to look up information about Monsanto after seeing this film, in addition to seeing many other films in this class featuring other horrific practices of Monsanto. The Monsanto official website is unsurprisingly much like other corporate websites. Issues are glossed over and information is skewed to make the company look fantastic. []

The Sourcewatch link below is a great, mostly unbiased overview of Monsanto and some of its products and history. []

I also wanted to look up information about some sustainable businesses. I found a list of 2010’s 100 most sustainable businesses in the world. I was interested to see the wide variety of countries in which these corporations are based; from the US to European nations to Brazil and even India. []