TuttleJPFilm1

John Peter Tuttle Annotation #1 – 10/10/2011 Film Annotation – “The Corporation” Word Count: 1224

1. Title, director and release year? “The Corporation” is a 2003 documentary film directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott.

2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? The film essentially summarizes the history of the corporation from its beginnings in the early twentieth century, showing how corporations started out with relatively reasonable rights, but slowly ended up out of control, with the rights of people, but barely any of the responsibilities such a position would entail. The narrative weaves through a variety of individual scenarios, showing how particular businesses take advantage of this particular arrangement.

3. How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal? The film is rather well-organized – it does have a bit of an overall narrative, but is divided up into individual stories; the separate narratives are divided up using titles, making it a bit easier to keep track of what is going on. Scientific information is sometimes provided, though more of the film is of a more narrative, rather than technical, nature. Most of the information is provided through interviews with various people – CEOs of companies, activists, movie directors, people from third-world countries affected by corporations’ actions, etc., though a narrator occasionally provides information connecting different scenarios. Music is used occasionally for emotional appeal, as is the psychological checklist that comes up occasionally, which really shows how companies’ actions are not in line with most of society’s expectations for behavior.

4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational? Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological? The Corporation draws out a wide variety of sustainability problems. It covers some of the problems Monsanto has caused – using bovine growth hormone and covering it up, as well as patenting and producing un-replantable seeds. It mentions some issues with media and sustainability – Fox’s attempt to cover up a story about Monsanto’s use of bovine growth hormone, and the resulting legal repercussions. It also mentions some of the major ecological issues with pollution – starting with some of the issues in the past (DDT, Agent Orange), and mentioning more modern problems, such as paper mills dumping waste into nearby rivers. With regards to cultural, media, informational and behavioral issues, the film does go into some of the psychology behind advertising, especially to children, and how companies hire psychologists, not for what one would expect (making sure products provide good messages, etc), but rather, to engineer advertisements that play to exactly what will get kids to nag parents for products. Going from this, the film brings up Celebration, Florida, a community created by Disney – a physical manifestation of a particular company’s ideals. It also brings up the behavior of business from a psychology perspective, and, in a part of the film I particularly liked, basically diagnosed them as being psychopaths if anyone were to logically analyze the actions of some of them. With regards to legal issues, it brings up some of the issues with the powers corporations have, and how they can easily get the government or particular agencies to ignore or overlook their wrongdoings, and how much effort some corporations put into covering such acts up.

5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? I found the part about the Fox News story about Monsanto quite persuasive; I wasn’t too surprised by it; I knew that sort of censorship generally tends to take place; I had just never heard a first-hand account of something like that occurring, and descriptions of the edits that took place. The part about advertising was quite interesting, too; I had a general idea of the psychology behind ads, but it was quite revealing seeing exactly how marketing departments tend to tweak ads to get kids to nag their parents, and seeing the presentations they made for meetings about it.

6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why? There are not too many parts of the movie that I was not compelled by. Some of the portions of the movie, such as one that mentioned copyright, seemed a bit irrelevant given the subject matter, but they did sort of seem to fit in. If the intent was to go for material that would surprise or shock the viewer into action, though, those portions did not wok particularly well.

7. What audiences does the film best address? Why? I would say that the film best addresses the general public; it provides an excellent amount of background on the topics it covers that would likely be unnecessary to cover if the film were written to address people who are more informed about a particular topic. That being said, given the material it covers, it might not be bad viewing material for some CEOs (regardless of whether or not they want to watch it).

8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value? In some cases, more scientific information would be helpful at times, though it is not strictly necessary, and as it is, the film is perfectly fine with regards to the arguments it presents. There also might be issues with length if they added in too much more material.

9. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective. The film tends to suggest that in some cases, CEOs do not even know what is going on in their own companies with regards to certain sustainability problems, such as sweatshop workers, pollution, etc. In other cases, however, CEOs knowingly break the law or at least act unethically. The film suggests that having more accountability for companies would work; however, it does not really go into too much detail on how this would be accomplished. In many cases, the government agencies in charge of regulating environmental issues are easily swayed by the same businesses the agencies are in charge of regulating; there should be something in place to stop this sort of abuse of loopholes.

10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.) The film did compel me to research a bit more about the Monsanto/Fox controversy; I found an online article about it. It did not provide too much more information compared to the film, but it did provide a bit more detail on the problems Monsanto tried to cover up. I also found a more recent article in the Huffington Post that explained what happened in more detail, detailing Monsanto’s responses to particular questions asked by the investigators, and how their responses differed from Monsanto’s “research,” and how Monsanto wanted to make labeling products to warn consumers about bovine growth hormone illegal, which is not that surprising, given everything else they were trying to hide.

Cumins, Ronnie. “Monsanto and Fox TV Unite to Suppress Journalists' Free Speech on Hazards of Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)”. In Motion Magazine. 28 April 1998. http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/fox.html Smith, Jeffrey M. “Monsanto Forced Fox TV to Censor Coverage of Dangerous Milk Drug.” Huffington Post. 13 April 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/monsanto-forced-fox-tv-to_b_186428.html