W7- Food Inc.

The Food Inc. documentary definitely had a lot of persuasive elements to it. The strongest in my opinion were the shots of the animals, mainly cows and how they were treated. For me to say that I am not an animal-lover is an understatement, but I don't like that animals are treated the way they are. Another persuasive element was the Joel Salatin and the other normal farmers' testimonies about how they do everything they can to succeed and not lose their livelihoods because corporations are taking over the food industry. It's never an enjoyable thing to watch someone who works so hard fail or be threatened with failure. Obviously, the mother of the deceased child was sad to see and played to my emotions.

One of the things that wasn't at all persuasive to me was the pity-party thrown in the documentary for the illegal aliens being arrested. There were quotes in the video about how it was sad how they were used by the food plants and then arrested and sent back home. One person said something about how its sad that they get used and then get sent back while the managers and people who run the companies get to stay in America. In a sense I understand that hiring illegal aliens should be punished because its against the law. However, comparing the higher-ups' in the company and the working aliens' right to stay in the country is utterly flawed logic and the documentary lost credibility with me for focusing on that as long as it did.  

Another thing I didn't find to be as persuasive as the filmmakers wanted was the video of the dead chickens and the constant shot of dead animals in production lines. To me it isn't sad that animals die for humans to eat them. There is nothing wrong with that. Everyone knows when they eat meat that an animal had to die for them to get it on their plate. I felt like the film tried to make that a sad thing and again it's just not.

One question I have about the whole concept of the film, which I interpreted as American citizens don't know what they are eating and how it's prepared and how big companies are basically making the food industry a monopoly. Is why is it that way? The film makes it seem like the food industry is run a certain way that keeps itself hidden behind a "vale." I would argue that Americans have as much of a role, if not a bigger role than the companies do in putting up that vale. Sure people don't want kids to die, or themselves to die from obesity related symptoms. But are we changing? Not much. That's because we want the vale to be there, we don't want to know just as much as the companies don't want us to know. We don't want to have to spend extra money at a local market than at Walmart because Walmart in convenient and cheaper and the food tastes just fine. So was I influenced at all by this film? No, not at all.