Bensley+Annotations+7

David Bensley Annotation #7 15 Nov 2011 //Affluenza// Word Count: 1,012

//Affluenza //is a 1997 made-for-TV PBS special written by John de Graaf.
 * 1. Title, director and release year? **

The main argument of //Affluenza// is that Americans are becoming increasingly consumption-oriented and obsessed with shopping and owning material things. Despite this, we are becoming less and less satisfied with our lives, and are saving a smaller portion of our money.
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? **

The film is broken into several segments, each about 10 minutes long, indicating the “symptoms” of affluenza. For each one, the symptom is looked into in detail. For example, there was a segment about marketing to children and conditioning children to want material goods (“Material Girls (and Boys)”), and another about our excessive reliance on credit and lack of savings (“A Rash of Bankruptcy”). Finally, it offers a few “treatments” for affluenza.
 * 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 has a satisfactory amount of scientific data, from figures on how much Americans save today compared to the 1950s, to statistics about the increasing role of debt in marital problems, to how much more time parents spend shopping than playing with their children at home.

The film mostly discusses behavioral and cultural problems. It is a telling point that the number of malls in America exceeded the number of high schools over 20 years ago. We also view shopping centers as areas of social gathering; the mall is “the place” to meet with friends during leisure times. The fact that games like “Mall Madness,” whose main objective is to buy the most things, exist is representative of this problem.
 * 4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? **

//Affluenza //also discusses educational problems, particularly that America’s children are being conditioned to want more and more material goods.

The part of the film about childhood indoctrination to consumerism was persuasive to me. This is partly because the film was created when I was growing up—I was eight years old when it was released—so I was able to connect with the products on offer. Additionally, it is sad to see that my generation is possibly more conditioned to //want// than any other, while at the same time we are told that we will be a force of change in the fight for sustainability.
 * 5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? **

The segment about Joe Dominguez, who was able to retire early and become happier through the use of frugality, was also poignant. It shakes the foundations of Americans’ understanding of happiness: that it is derived from spending //less//, not more.

The statistics on affluence given toward the middle of the film—specifically referring to the lack of microwaves, dishwashers, etc. in 1950s-era homes compared to those of today—did not seem like solid evidence of increasing affluence, as those are relatively recent technologies. One could similarly point to the lack of recycling done in that time period as an increase in sustainability without making a legitimate argument; it is simply a straw man approach.
 * <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why? **

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I was also not convinced by the interviews with the representative of Focus on the Family and with Ted Haggard. These parts just reminded me about how different today’s world is from when this film was made, in that Haggard has been shrouded in scandal while Focus on the Family is associated with the Republican Party, which is not normally associated with being concerned about sustainability.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Finally, the idea of Buy Nothing Day seemed like a bad idea; it is scheduled to be the Friday after Thanksgiving Day. Trying to host Buy Nothing Day on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, seems like the organizers were setting themselves up for failure.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film has the type of light-hearted humor that makes it accessible to grade school students, but could also be an important introduction to the topic of sustainability for adults who are not familiar with it. This is because the film touches on many different topics in a non-technical manner while using everyday language. However, it does not delve very deeply into any particular aspect of consumerism.
 * <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">7. What audiences does the film best address? Why? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">This film discussed very little about environmental issues. It was very anthropocentric, focusing on the negative human impacts of consumerism. It mentioned the excessive amounts of waste generated by Americans, but spent no time at all talking about its effects on the environment.
 * <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value? **

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film suggests one very important point of corrective action, which would be to change the measure of “progress” from simply looking at GDP growth to a “GPI”—Genuine Progress Indicator. It takes into the importance of volunteerism, reducing crime, etc. The argument in favor of GPI also points out that such things as cancer diagnoses and divorces lead to an increase in GDP without making people happier.
 * <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">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. **

After watching this movie, I was interested in finding out the relationship between happiness and GDP growth—whether the trends in the movie had continued since 1997, and whether happiness and GDP were positively correlated in other countries. I was interested to find that the United States moved up from 150th overall to 114th overall while improving its score significantly in the Happy Planet Index between 2006 and 2009. U.S. GDP growth actually slowed during that time. However, poorer nations like Zimbabwe had similar GDP trends with no noticeable improvement in happiness.
 * <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.) **

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