Do not get fooled by appearances

Black Gold is a documentary telling a story about coffee trading and its issues; it portrays Tadesse Meskela, a coffee trader, and the struggles that his workers go through the payment gaps of the trading system. In the other words, the movie is centered in the unfairness of the empire.

The review written by Rovi Jason Buchanan on “Rotten Tomatoes” says, “Filmmakers Marc and Nick Francis team to explore the discrepancy between the skyrocketing profits of multinational coffee companies and the all-time low prices paid for coffee harvests in a documentary that aims to provide a voice to the struggling farmers and laborers who strive to keep the coffee flowing.” I believe that the movie is much more than that. It is obviously concentrating in the economic system, but it is only showing another of the flaws of the empire. As Colossians Remix chapter 9 says, “You see, if there is something any empire wants you to believe, it is that ‘what you see is what you get’” which is not true for almost everything in life – the shell is just the cover, the snail is the prima donna. In the movie there is a part that shows Tadesse Meskela looking for Ethiopian coffee in a normal grocery store… he had a hard time finding it. This addresses the issue that consumers do not really think about the products they buy, they do not ask where it comes from, who made it, and if it was fairly made; the empire tricks us into believing that consuming without thinking is good because it is “cheap”. Furthermore, the movie gave me a moment of epiphany that made me think that I should be more conscience about the things I buy: just because the clothes look clean and sleek (e.g.: GAP, Nike…) does not mean that it was fairly made or just because the food tastes good does not mean that the farmers that worked for it did not suffer. PS: we are humans, living things easy to be fooled, so be careful of advertisements and logos!

Review link: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10006485-black_gold/

Why the Corn is King

“King Corn - Movies - Review.” Accessed January 16, 2013. http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/movies/12corn.html.

The NY Times wrote an article on the movie “King Corn” and I have to say that the writer missed the main point of the movie. The writer talked about how in the movie, most of the corn will be used for cow feed and the rest are basically used for high fructose corn syrup. This would cause an increase in obesity because of the amount of corn that is in our foods and the animals that we eat. Although this is an important topic of the movie, I believe there is a more important topic the writer missed. The movie talks about how the corn industry has in a way taken over everything because everything has or holds corn in a way. Yes the rise in obesity is important but that is not the main point of the movie. The point of the movie was to see where all this corn was going to and how it would be used. The author does mention the results of the corn by stating that the corn will become high fructose corn syrup but does not mention or describe the process of it. We can’t just shrug this off by saying that it will become corn syrup but we need to question the process. There are two ways that the corn will go, one is that it will become corn syrup but the chemicals that are used to make it are extremely hazardous. The second is that it will be used to feed the cow. When the cow eats the corn, the cow forms a certain acid in its acid which will later be deadly and kill the cow. The farmers are using corn because it gets the cows fat and bigger faster when they feed on corn.  The whole process is very painful for the cows. The process is inhumane and therefore we need to rethink it through. Although I do agree with how the information was presented in the movie. The author says how Cheney and Ellis are nondescript when giving out the facts, which I can agree with. If they seemed more interested and was more specific about the information then the documentary could have been stronger. After watching the movie I was really shocked. I did not know that there was so much corn in the everyday food that we ate. To be truthful I really didn’t know what to do. Let’s take the documentary “Supersize Me”, after watching the movie; I knew that the fast foods were bad for you and that we needed to avoid it. After watching the movie, I didn’t know what to do because corn was in so many of our products. It literally is in so much of our foods that I was kind of scared. Have I been really this ignorant and oblivious to the harm and threat without noticing and even know that the threat existed. Then I had to think what I could do to answer to this movie. It’s not like I can boycott all products that have corn in it but what I can do is raise awareness.  The first place that I would start is my family, the church, and then friends. I can’t persuade those around me to stop eating all the food that has corn but I can raise awareness and tell them about what is happening. Also I was afraid of the corn industry after I saw the movie. Corn has become such a cheap ingredient in making the different food products for the other companies and has come to rely on the corn so much. If the corn company decided to use this as a persuasion tool then it made me wonder what they were possible of achieving. It made me realize that we really need to question and be curious or we will ignorant to what is happening.

Black Gold

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120700574.html

   Ann Hornaday, from the Washington Post, gives the film Black Gold a short but prevailing review. She gets to the main point right away stating that “the Ethiopean farmers are being ripped off by the corporate middleman and the $80 billion world market”. Hornaday also mentions how after watching the film, people won't look at their 3 dollar Starbucks coffee the same way again. I agree with her statement because the film made me realize that by buying coffee from the big name corporations, I was indirectly taking sides with them in oppressing the Ethiopian farmers. The statement during the movie that “for a three dollar cup of coffee a farmer earns three cents” was devastating to me. I knew that coffee at Starbuck was overpriced because of its brand name, but I also thought that coffee beans in general were expensive especially those from Ethiopia because of their taste and quality. It was shocking to learn how little to nothing these coffee farmers were getting while the companies were making 100 times more than that.

   I was encouraged to really take a moment to ask myself if I should be consuming from these large corporations who are literally ripping off the poverty strucken farmers. It hit me greater as I grew up in the mission field experiencing impoverishment first hand. I was greatful to learn that we could support these farmers simply by purchasing Fair Trade goods and even more when I found out that Calvin College used and sold only Fair Trade coffee. I'll be thinking again before buying coffee from cafes other than the Fish House.