The film Food, Inc., gave viewers the opportunity to learn more about the food production industry in the United States. As I watched the film, I came to conclusion there is a lot I do not know about the food industry today. When I saw what farmers were doing to induce mass production of livestock and produce, I was not at all shocked. Being that I am vegetarian, I know a little more than the next person the food industry, but I always questioned whether or not the statistics were expansions of the truth and I would decide between what was real and what was not. This movie exhibited cold, hard facts through interviews of multiple sources. I think what really hit home to me, was the story about the E.Coli epidemic, I was able to relate to this because my father almost died from the same cause. He was about the same age as the little boy, Kevin, when he also was poisoned by E.Coli. This segment of Food, Inc., took the food industry perspective on a whole new level. Knowing that these companies are doing little to nothing to compensate citizens for medical bills and other expenses from food borne illnesses’ makes me sick. Kevin’s story itself is a real tear-jerker but after showing pictures and clips of him as a happy, healthy child, there is no person in this world that could not be affected by this. The producers used this as a brilliant persuasive technique because its saying, if you are not affected by this, then you’re heartless. It makes the viewers become a part of the film, knowing that industrialized mass production is occurring throughout the United States is one thing, but seeing the story of a two year olds life being taken away due to greedy food production companies makes the viewer actually want to do something to change this.
Altogether, when comparing the pages 3-64 of the book to the film, I felt that the film does a greater job affecting ones ethical views due to the images that are in-graded in the viewers mind. The book, Film, Inc., goes into greater detail on trends, statistics and sources to further explore. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a different person speaking about the issue, which gives the book more credibility than the film, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, the film brings in many perspectives and resources, I just like how the book ties in many specialists on each individual topic. The book is a good supplement to the movie, allowing the reader a little background of the movie, itself.
I agree with you on how the film definitely affects ones ethical views by being able to show the viewer images,whereas this does not happen with just reading text from the book. The book is more informative, but like you said does not affect ones emotions as much. The story about the boy definitely hit hard with me too, and showing the pictures of him as a healthy young child helped the emotional tone of the story.
ReplyDeleteKevin's story is extremely important in engaging the viewer, i agree. I enjoyed the movie a lot more than I was expecting too, and I'll agree that the multitude of sources in the book is cool and adds significant credibility, but I think I'll always prefer the movie to this book. Though the book may say more, the movie says everything that needs to be said and to me, its much more 'colorful' than the dry text in the book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the your statement about the book having a little more credibility do to the many different credibly people speaking about the different aspects of the food industry. I think that statics and data add much credibility and truth to the issue since number don't lie.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who not only eats differently but has a close personal connection to the emotional aspects of the movie, you're evaluation of these sources holds more gravity than those of myself or others who are not familiar with the problems in our food industry. I agree that the book is more informative; I think that the movie could have added some more information than it did, but like you said the movie was mostly for emotional impact.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very powerful response for this blog post. I can see how much more experienced you are in this area from your personal accounts only. I knew someone as well who encountered a terrible event in their life from contaminated meat.
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