Norma Rae

From what the movie portrayed, neither the government nor the market can be trusted to ensure the success of labor. The film portrayed an uneducated working class that is scared of losing their jobs. The textile factory they work at is actively harming the workers and the higher ups in the factory do not seem to care. Unionizing is their last option to improve their working conditions. In the film, and in real life, the market / industry only cares about making money, despite the health and well being of the worker, and the government will not take action until the people do. In the US, jobs, such as those shown in the textile mill, do not exist to the same capacity. Many of the factory jobs have been outsourced to nations with less government oversight and less regulation. Outsourcing allows companies to save money on safety precautions and their worker’s paychecks. 

Comments

  1. Catherine BolzendahlMarch 6, 2023 at 3:41 PM

    Would have like to see you push this further. How might you have engaged more fully with the discussion prompt or questions while watching?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

El Norte

Image
El Norte is a film about a brother and sister’s journey from a small Guatemalan village north to the US, where they hope to have a better life. While there they face many of the problems Latin American immigrants face in the US. To migrants, the US provides the opportunity of work and some degree of safety while at the same time the US actively creates barriers for immigrants. This was displayed in the movie by Enrique and Rosa not having official documents which greatly limited their job opportunities and limited where they could live. ICE was also a constant threat to Enrique and Rosa along with the people they worked with, such as Enrique’s coworker who reported him to immigration. Later generation migrants tend to contribute to an idealized version of the US that was portrayed by the villagers’ more positive description of the US. In this idealized version, immigration to the US is an easy process and once in the US wealth is abundant for those who try hard. In reality, living in t...
Read more

Dr. Strangelove- Havlyn Ehrich

Image
  Dr. Strangelove is a very interesting movie. We see a satirical stance of politics addressing the Cold War at the time the movie was made. According to one of the readings posted by The Atlantic, it is noted that audiences laughed at this movie back in 1964 when it was produced. However, things became more serious as time went on and nuclear war terminology soon became the norm in public entertainment. The movie Dr. Strangelove tells the story of an individual who has gone insane and launched a nuclear missile attack on the Soviet Union. The movie highlights the incompetence of the president in the movie as well the other governmental officials. They were all acting in fear that the Soviet Union would send nuclear missiles on them too. Such a case would be considered mutual destruction: each party terminates the other. Though this was meant as a comedy, this idea became very real to the people at the time and still flourish in the lives of Americans today. The US president is a...
Read more

Norma Rae - Natalie Sharp

Image
  As demonstrated in the movie Norma Rae, without a regulated market or government regulation, labor workers are easily abused. The film did a great job of highlighting the difficulties the workers face in the textile industry in a town where that was the only job for almost everyone. The fear of standing up and being fired raised the stakes for many people and created a divide in who was willing to risk it all for better conditions. It was interesting to see that the black workers and most of the women workers were the ones pushing for the union the most. We can see that these groups are already being so oppressed that they might have less fear of getting fired than pushing for a union because they are already extremely taken advantage of. When in reality everyone wins if they can all come together. Another thing we have seen portrayed in the film and other films we have watched so far is the division of identities to separate the levels of oppression so each group feels like the...
Read more