BLA Documentary Assignment
I watched the documentary Food Inc. which was directed by Robert Kenner. This documentary and the book, Fast Food Nation [written by Eric Schlosser], had many differences. First of all, I found that their arguments were slightly different. In the documentary, I found that the whole purpose of the video was to inform their audience that the food industry can change their ways if the consumers (us) demand it but in the book, they focused more on how the fast food industry is impacting the meat packing industry drastically. Next, the book appealed more to logos as there were more facts and statistic. These numbers helped me, as a reader, to understand better about what they're talking about and it really emphasized on why Schlosser felt like it was becoming such a huge problem in our society. The documentary, however, didn't appeal to much to logos but to pathos instead. The documentary showed many interviews from different perspectives. For example, Moe Parr was the guy that impacted the most in this documentary. He is a soy bean farmer in Illinois and he was sued for cleaning soy beans. Moe talked about how he wanted to save these beans so that he could plant it the following year but one of his neighbors reported him and a private investigator came to check it out. He was then taken to court and sued. He ended losing 95% of his business and because he was unable to pay any more legal fees, he had to settle with Monsanto out of court. This was a really important story because it really showed how these big companies could easily control their farmers. In this documentary, it also said that these big companies know how to manipulate their farmers and treat them like slaves. The companies with a flick of a finger, they could breach a contract just because the farmer refused to upgrade to a more efficient machine or so. The last thing I found that was different was that the argument from the documentary was more straight to the point. From the beginning to the end, the purpose was clear whereas, in the book, my BLA group and I had to read several chapters before deciding on an argument. The book's layout was organized that the beginning of the book was just backgrounds of many important people in the fast food industry and how they made it big then, it slowly went into how the working conditions were horrible to the diseases that were caused by the bad treatment of the animals which were all at the end.
The similarities that the book and documentary shared was that both of them had a lot of imagery and descriptive ways of proving their point. In the book, Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser used a lot of easy and simple words so that his audience would get what he is trying to say immediately rather than to stop and look the specific work up in the dictionary. In the documentary, they showed a lot of vivid videos of what really was happening in these factories. There were many exclusive videos that was showed in the documentary like the worker from the meat packing factory that brought in a hidden camera with him so that he could share the horrors of a meat packing industry.
I think both the book and the documentary was really well done. I would like to say that I haven't eaten a piece of meat ever since I learnt about the treatments of these animals, workers, farmers, etc. in this industry. I've only been eating salads and fruits. As the documentary said, this industry can change if we demand it. So what are we waiting for? Let's come together and make a change for a better future!
