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One of the most developed and advanced entities within the contemporaneous day and age is, undoubtedly, the intangible entity that we refer to, with typical obtuseness, as society. From the way that we dress, to the way that we talk and interact with our peers, the features and characteristics of a particularly respective society influence practically all of our perceptual as well as behavioral traits. And this is something that illustrated quite effectually and graphically within the film ‘ Roger And Me ’, directed by the now-renowned director, Michael Moore. In ‘ Roger And Me ’, which was made in 1989, Moore documents the dramatic economic transition from prosperity to poverty of the city of Flint, Michigan. In doing so, he manages to convey the instrumentality that social transitions tend to have upon cultural, and ultimately, behavioral features and characteristics of a given area. Moore’s prime focus throughout the film, which is actually a documentary comprised of various conditions within the city, is to locate and convince Roger Smith, the head of General Motors (GM) at the time, to come to Flint, Michigan, and see the consequences that the migration of GM had on the community of Flint, Michigan. Moore stresses upon the notion that the economic transition from prosperity to poverty was particularly due to the extraction of GM from Flint, Michigan. Closing down its operations in Flint, Michigan, GM moved its factories to Mexico, hiring a completely new workforce and citing economic factors and competitive pressure as the causative reasons for these initiatives. The result of this extraction, however, left Flint, Michigan, in a state of grave economic strife, particularly due to the drastic decrease in the availability of jobs; 1989 saw 50% of Flint's GM workforce unemployed. The significance of this, moreover, is further underscored when considering that this ultimately caused a level of unemployment in the city that was unprecedented in American history. The almost collective grimness and despair that appears to permeate most of the scenes, from the interviews with locals to panning focuses of particular locales, is perhaps the strongest precedent to impact that socio-cultural contexts tend to have upon human behavior. On the whole, Roger & Me is a fascinating examination of what happened in Flint, Michigan due to the closure of several General Motors assembly line plants. It would be apt to here acknowledge that in ‘ Roger And Me ’ desperation is perhaps the most evident example of human emotion when it comes to the behavioral relevance of socio-cultural changes. This is something that is illustrated quite lucidly when considering it in light of the scene in the film where Moore brings focus upon a woman who is forced to breed and sell rabbits, both, as food as well as pets. The relevance of this situation is especially driven in when the camera focuses upon the woman as she is shown in the process of knocking a rabbit unconscious and then skinning and gutting it; obviously upon the discretion of a customer interested in the food-properties of the rabbit rather than its worth as a pet. The expression and mannerism (s) of the woman as she is shown within the process of slaughtering the rabbit commands a scene that is of utmost relevance to understanding the impact of socio-cultural shifts and transitions upon the features of human behavior. |
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