Cultural Conflict in Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me”

In Dario Fos Accidental Death of an Anarchist, a character asks Where ar all these poor plenty I keep hearing about? I go to a lot of parties, and I never meet any of them. In his movie Roger and Me Michael Moore depicts the story when the general everyday can meet those poor people. The movie is a documentary about the effect of General Motors specify shutdown in Flint, Michigan, in the mid-1980s.From the critical principal of view, Roger and Me constitutes a sardonic experience of corporate favorable responsibility, everlasting social and cultural conflict (once greatly emphasized by Marx) amid working phratry and capitalists, now often covered in the image of managers and corporate specialists. Simultaneously, the film can be comprehend as unsuccessful attempt of the artist to abstract from pitiful effects of the event ( seet closing) and to create unbiassed actual picture. Practically, Moores Roger and Me represents documentary of satire, social revolt and prejudice.A fter the closing of plant Michael Moore tried to exact in with Roger Smith, head of GM in Detroit, to invite him to Flint for a look at what had happened to people there. Practically, Moore never got near Smith, therefore he created a documentary, where people and some facts spoke for themselves. The conflict between big partnership and workers regarding the issues of corporate social responsibility remains to be urgent and sensitive. From the critical point of view, there is nothing wrong with attacking General Motors. This company along with the vast majority of multinational corporations surely deserves to be attacked. Criticism, fair or unfair, whether deserved or not, is a price people pay to represent in a free society.Thus, Michael Moore had every right to make his smash-hit documentary film. Like any advocate, surely he had the right to present only one side of a case. Simultaneously, there is a deflexion between fair and unfair criticism, just as there is a difference between rightfulness and factual distortion. Fair critical review challenges the actions of a person or an organization, examines something your opponent has done, and attacks him or her for it. Even if it whitethorn hurt the person criticized, fair criticism contributes vigor and health to a free society. It helps check ridicule of power, corruption and wrongdoing. unsportsmanlike criticism uses lies and distortions to accuse someone of things he has not done and wouldnt do. Unfair criticism blames him for things beyond his control. Unfair criticism uses innuendo to attack him for things that cant be said outright because they are untrue. Unfair criticism employs dirty proficiencys of filmmaking (or other distortions) and degrades and endangers a free society, because it damages public trust in our institutions. Individual brain decides at what point unfairness becomes outright dishonesty.Michael Moore begins his story by saying, Maybe I got this wrong, but I thought companies lay off people when they hit hard magazines. GM was the richest company in the world, and was closing factories when it was making profits in the billions GM Chairman Roger Smith appeared to have a brilliant plan First, close 11 factories in the U.S., then open 11 in Mexico where you pay the workers 70 cents an hour. thusly use the money you save by building cars in Mexico to take over other companies, and takeably high-tech firms and weapons manufacturers. Next, tell the union youre broke and they happily agree to give back a couple billion dollars in wage cuts. The situation depicted by Moore seems to be outrageous.However, if critically examined GM could not sell Flint-made cars unless it modernized obsolete factories. Moreover, in during that period GMs average net under the United Auto Workers contract was $15.36 compared to the national industry average of $9.07 (Kauffmann, 10). General Motors did build Mexican factories and employ low-cost, unskilled labor to assemble wir e and cable harnesses for GM cars. The wire and cables in those harnesses were excogitate in the United States.To stay competitive, GM had to reduce the cost of hand-assembly of the harnesses. So, it worked out an agreement with the Mexican government activity to provide needed unskilled jobs in poverty-stricken areas of Mexico. The Mexican government then allowed GM to manufacture more cars for the Mexican (not the U.S.) market (Kauffmann, 11).Moores camera shows an auto worker who had suffered a mental breakdown. He cracked one night period working on the assembly line. He was now shooting basketball at the local mental health center. Was Moore honest in blaming GM and Roger Smith because his friend had a mental breakdown? GM refuses to discuss whether the man had a previous record of mental instability, because, the company says, personnel records are confidential.Was Moore honest in showing a gun-toting crazed man injectant down in the street by police, to support his clai m that GM layoffs had caused crime rates to soar upwards in Flint? Moore failed to mention that crime has dropped 13 percent since 1986, when the major layoffs took place (Schwammenthal, 7). Instead of soaring, as Moore says, crime in Flint dropped 5 percent in the first half of last year, while violent crime across the United States increased 5 percent during the same period (Schwammenthal, 7).If assesses critically, Michael Moore technique can be characterized as untruth persuasion since he, being a talented director and undergo persuader, focused exclusively on the negative sides of the closing, hence corporate social responsibility in the context. From the in the flesh(predicate) point of view, Moore abstracts from the core of the problem, social conflict, and speculates on working class mentality.Bob Eubanks of The parvenuely-wed Game is included as he ridicules Jews with a vile anti-Semitic remark. Moore himself ridicules a pretty young Miss Michigan, who, at the time of h is ambush interview was more concerned with being chosen as Miss America than she was satisfactory to discuss economic conditions in Flint (White, 1). Moore ridicules a homosexual in a way that the film critic of the Chicago Tribune called the lowest kind of gay-bashing, a crude crowd-pleasing gesture (Schwammenthal, 7).Moores documentary becomes the picture full of controversies. Practically, the film could consolidate the general public and authorities over the problems in Flint, however its sardonic, nihilistic and controversial character does not offer any resolution and brings the conflict to the very top.BibliographyKauffmann, Stanley. Films & the Arts Cars and opposite Vehicles, The New Republic. Washington Jan 22, 1990. Vol. 202, Iss. 4Joseph B. White. Movie That Attacks GM, Roger Smith Opens in Flint, Michigan. Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), New York, N.Y. Dec 21, 1989Daniel Schwammenthal. In the Fray Michaels Manipulations, The Chicago Tribune. Chicago, May 19, 1 990