Food Inc.
If you’ve read Fast Food Nation or The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Inc. won’t cover any new ground for you.It’s a well-crafted doc, though, and I filled up with rage all over again at the way fast food has become a class issue (and then in turn an epidemic of diabetes for low-income families who can’t afford fresh produce), and at the lack of protections for small business when it comes to bully lawsuits.
I haven’t read the reviews for this one; maybe someone would like to let me know if it’s gotten criticized for taking a particular position and not remaining “objective.”If Michael Moore made the same documentary and had the same chyrons at the end, he’d get roasted, as he always seems to do, but most documentaries take a position of some kind; when it comes to Moore’s work, though, it seems like he’s expected to hew to some standard of documentary objectivity that doesn’t exist in the first place.Not trying to start an argument over Moore himself, but I watch a lot of documentaries, and it’s something I’ve had on my mind of late.
I’d also like to take the opportunity to recommend Michael Pollan’s earlier book which isn’t as well-known: The Botany of Desire.It’s a very cool cultural overview of four plants that changed the world (I believe he covers apples, tulips, pot, and potatoes) that lends perspective to our current cultural “issues” with food and food production.
Death Race 45, Sarah 13
Tags: Eric Schlosser Michael Pollan movies Oscars 2010 Death Race
THANK YOU – I’ve always said that about Michael Moore! Where did anyone get the idea that documentaries are supposed to be non-biased??? (I like the Moore, though.) I wish those folks would put thier efforts toward forcing FOX NEWS to tell the TRUTH. @@
Hopping off my soapbox now, thanks for letting me rant.
Thanks for the recommendations, too.
I’m a sucker for any of those detailed historical and cultural looks at specific items, but “The Botany of Desire” is particularly well-written. It has just enough personal asides to keep it from feeling like a textbook without also making the story all about him.
I heard the recent PBS documentary version of it was good but I haven’t seen it. Does anyone know if it’s worth watching?
“Food Inc.” is sitting on top of my DVD player right now, in its Netflix envelope. I’d like to watch it, but I kind of don’t want to, either, because I’m afraid it’ll make me never want to eat anything ever again. (Which, OK, might not be a terrible thing.)
Oh, and I really enjoyed “The Botany of Desire.” I second your recommendation.
I watched Food, Inc. yesterday afternoon while home sick from work. I didn’t find it as manipulative as most documentaries of this style…or maybe I’ve just watched too many of them and I’m desensitized now!
Now I’m all hungry.
I haven’t seen it myself, but my brother was frustrated by it. He’s a farmer. He doesn’t work for a big corporation, and he has his own issues with factory farming, but he thought the doc was extremely one sided. He said it gave the standard, “Our food is all manipulated, and the corporations are feeding us crap.” without any other sense of why this has happened besides money.
Again, I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say any of this with any certainty other than the fact that I trust my brother, and he’s a smart and thoughtful guy.
Here’s a link to most of the major reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/foodinc?q=Food%20Inc.
So far as I can tell, critics didn’t criticize it for not being “objective” (with the possible exception, of course, of the New York Post – they don’t come right out and say so, but calling it a Your Hamburger Is Bad For You film certainly hints at that).
I do have to admit my problem with the film was I’d read all of this before – the only thing new to me was the organic food makers trying to sell their product to WallMart, and their rational for doing so, which was interesting. Also, I agree with the main criticism of the film – they only cover each issue they raise on a basic level, instead of going deeper into it. Contrast that with The Cove (the other nominated documentary this year I’ve seen), which thoroughly explores its issue, tells me a lot I didn’t know, and tells it very well.
There’s a good discussion going on at the below about this film, and what the challenges are for people trying to eat healthy. Like many of the commenters, I wish that the film would have spent a little more time on how to solve the problem.
http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2010/02/food-money-matters-cheap-healthy-eating.html
I saw this a while back with a friend, and it wasn’t new territory for either of us but I appreciated the way it was put together and the fact that it wasn’t hardcore sermonizing. He had an interesting criticism of it, which is that he didn’t feel he could share it with his conservative father because it is too easy to criticize the rather one-dimensional position and treatment that they give the issues. (He said the same thing about Avatar recently as well.)
His dad is a smart business guy, and pretty conservative, so this is a tough standard to pass, but at least one person familiar with the issues felt that it was a bit unbalanced.
Most of the criticisms I’ve heard of Food Inc. are that it’s nothing new (to those already into food activism) and that it doesn’t present enough solutions. My response? You probably weren’t the target audience, then. When I’ve shown it to friends and family who *weren’t* already familiar with food politics, they tend to be interested and impressed – which is HUGE for a documentary. It’s an approachable, entertaining, and broad introduction. As you may have guessed, I’m a fan.
Yes, it’s biased, as most or all documentaries are – that’s not a flaw, it’s a fact. As for your comments on Michael Moore: again, yes. He gets a lot of flak for being one-sided, but that very confrontational style is what gets media attention for him, his movies, and the issues they bring up; it’s deliberate. But then, *I’m* biased there, as a Michigan native, because he continues to devote enormous energy to improving that state. For the latest, check out the Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival.
The film version of “The Botany of Desire” is quite interesting too, and available on Netflix Instant last I checked.
Thanks for that link, DriverB. I too get a little annoyed at the implication that healthy food is necessarily expensive. It isn’t always, it’s just that it often takes more time and attention to make healthy food that also tastes good. If we all ate broccoli, lentils, brown rice and milk we’d be pretty healthy, and the only think on that list that’s usually pricey is milk. However, most of us would probably go insane eating just that day in and day out.
I haven’t seen this yet myself, because, like Nichole, I’m afraid of what I’ll find out.
I tend to view these “unobjective” docos as starting point for a discussion on these topics.
As someone who has eaten up everything from Fast Food Nation, Morgan Spurlock and the writings of Marion Nestle, I found Barry Glassner’s Gospel of Food an interesting addition to the book shelf, mostly because it’s skeptical about all sides of the food politics debates. He also debunks some of the findings about oft cited studies.
If you haven’t read it Sars, the chapter on the fast food criticism as a form of classism might be of interest.
@Soylent: Is that the guy who wrote “Culture of Fear”? Because I heart that guy’s writing.
Fast-food crit is definitely a form of unintended marketing; I didn’t like myself for this, but I craved French fries the entire time I was reading FFN.
I could not get through this one. Footage and images of animal cruelty abound. For those who may be sensitive to this sort of thing, be forewarned.
I saw this at TIFF in 2008 & came out of it thinking a) I’ll never eat a supermarket chicken again (and of course I did), and b) a little simplistic, but otherwise, a pretty good doc.
I watch a lot of documentaries – at TIFF, Hot Docs fest here in Toronto, on IFC, HBO, wherever. I think that many people make the mistake of assuming that a documentary will be unbiased, while the opposite is always true; in order to develop a passion & POV for the doc, there is always a fairly strongly held opinion for the subject/issue, so there is a bias already inherently present (and usually exploited to secure funding). The trick with it, then, is keeping it moving & coherent, instead of turning into an endless hysterical rant.
@Sars
Sure is, although I didn’t love this one quite so much as Culture of Fear, probably because he was questioning a few of my sacred cows, like organic food.
And I know what you mean about FFcrit: I ate KFC while reading the chapter on chicken production in Not On The Menu and I eat the stuff MAYBE once a year
I’ve been thinking about this one for a while, and:
The reason that everyone says documentaries should be objective is that it’s what separates a documentary from other types of film. That is, objectivity regarding the subject is what makes a documentary strong; if you start being not-objective, then you are no longer presenting bare reality. You’re presenting an interpreted version of reality, and it immediately begs the question of why you didn’t just go whole-hog and make a fictional piece. Sure, maybe reality presents a muddled narrative with unclear motives and long gaps in the action and no thematic consistency and no obvious resolution–but that’s not an excuse to make these things up via clever editing!
I see these things and I wonder why the director didn’t just do a “based on a true story” thing.