Roger and Me
Two specific kinds of power, hegemony and ideology were displayed constantly throughout the movie Roger and Me. Ideology is our basic assumptions about how things are, or how they should be. Hegemony is the hidden power of society and encompasses the power of rules, standard operating procedures, and routines. The only way for any of these kinds of power to work would be that someone is dependent on something someone else has which is in a tight grasp in their grubby little hand (breath).In the beginning of the film it seemed that everyone thought that they were living in the perfect world. They had found Utopia, right in the middle of Flint, Michigan(yeah sure). The common ideology was that the city revolved around the GM plant, everyone worked there and life was good. Since ideologies can exist without anyone being aware of them, the people of Flint had no idea that they all shared a "Candide" outlook on life. Ok, you are saying Candide??? I read that in college, like I remember a stupid play! For you who need a refresher..Candide was a boy looking for a perfect world and he never found it. That is about it. Another example of warped ideological ideas from the movie came from the interview with John Kay, the lobbyist for GM.
The people of Flint, Michigan resembled Candide in that they were searching for the perfect world and for a time thought they had found it. Unlike the play, where people get hacked to bits and mamed just to return alive in the next scene, the people of Flint did not fare as well. In place there was a dangerous ideology of thinking: that when times are good they are there to stay. This thinking can set up a town like Flint for even more devastation than would have normally occurred. Another ideology that is prominent in big business today is that the "end justifies the means". If closing a few plants puts 20,000 people out of work but will keep the company alive 10 years longer then the means are justified. This seems like a cruel ideology, and most of the time it is. Roger Smith probably felt like this was the best decision for his company. This movie is dripping with sarcasm. It is very entertaining. It makes you wonder though, if he had not spent so much time trying to make everyone he interviewed look like a fool, some other issues may have been brought to light. Giving the guard his Chucky Cheese card made for great humor, but did he really expect them to Contact him or take his efforts seriously? (mmmmmmm Chucky Cheese) He was stating the reasons for the plant closings, giving some statist
Some common words found in the essay are:
Roger Smith, Roger GM, Flint Michigan, Flint Michiganyeah, Roger Ideology, Flint Bullshithe, Chucky Cheese, John Kay, , Roger Smith's, people flint, roger smith, perfect world found, world found, perfect world, fat liars, kinds power, human suffering, plant life, chucky cheese,
Approximate Word count = 880
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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