"Capitalism: A Love Story" and "Sicko"

By ROBERT CARBAJAL 

                                                Documentary Compare & Contrast

            The two documentaries that I decided to see were "Capitalism: A Love Story" and "Sicko," both were written, directed, and starring Michael Moore. Both of these films have a couple of things in common. They focus on what is currently happening in the United States during this period of crisis. Most of his films get to the point and clearly tell you what’s currently going on. They also say that there is a financial crisis in both of their areas in the pharmaceutical and nationwide financial dilemma.

            The film Sicko was directly about the American healthcare system. It focused mainly on the managed care and the pharmaceutical industry. At least four major industries ordered their employees not to do any interviews with Michael Moore. It too compared and contrasted the United States healthcare to other countries such as Canada, England, and Cuba.  A numerous amount of people from Wisconsin and Michigan head up to Canada just for free healthcare and use fake documents to do it since it’s so outrageously over priced to see a doctor here without medical insurance. They just cross the border to see the doctor and come right back. Many also tend to do this with their children.  Moore then travels to England and finds that medical healthcare isn’t bad at all. It’s free and not only that but when you leave they give you money for your cab fare back home. The doctors in England also get paid just as well or better than the ones here in the United States as well. Lastly when he went to Cuba he went to find medical attention and they bought medicine for a very affordable cost.

            In Capitalism a Love Story it focuses on the financial downfall of the late 2000s. With this you saw Wall Street’s casino mentality, profit for prisons, home foreclosures, how corporations own a life insurance on their workers and they don’t know, and the very high poverty level. In the beginning of the film Michael Moore compares us to the great empire of Rome and how their civilization was. They rose quickly had great power and then slowly but surely eventually fell. Things that happened to them is now happening to the United States and most don’t realize it. It also shows many robberies that have currently occurred in security camera footage. This film also shows families getting evicted from their homes even before the day comes. Also one of the most alarming parts of the films is when you find out that pilots get paid less than even a Taco Bell Manager and some are even on food stamps and have a second job with only getting paid 16,000 to 20,000 a year. Another part that caught much attention was when there was pilot failure and a plane went down, the pilot was killed the company he worked for had a life insurance policy on him. The already wealthy company got a over a million dollars more rich over an employee’s death and his wife and children didn’t receive a single dollar. This too happened with Wal-Mart one employee died and with the life insurance policy that Wal-Mart had they gained 800,000 dollars then once again the family members didn’t receive anything from it. Many families were also evicted from their houses and had nowhere to go. They got evicted no nessesarily because they didn’t get paid well but because they kept getting paid the same but the rent on the home kept increasing so there wasn’t any balance on it.

            There were a couple of things that were also different from both movies. In Capitalism it referenced to the passed a lot saying how this recession eventually came to be. Such as the beginning of the downfall of it all was Ronald Reagan’s second term in office. That was when poor decisions were made which then eventually made General Motors close down in Flint, Michigan. It talked about the past again comparing how people used to live. It used to be that only the father had to work and the mother worked only if she wanted too. The father had a pension plan set and he could use once he retired. Lastly with only one working parent you were able to send your child to college without any debt in loans. In Sicko there wasn’t any reference to the past just comparisons to other countries because this focused on American healthcare and how ours could probably better like other countries.

            I believe that both of these films very much told you the truth of what’s going on currently today and most of your questions will be answered. These two documentaries got to the message fairly quick. They did a good job at exploiting the problems to show the public. This could help us on making our financial decisions. They also taught you a lot of things you don’t learn in school and that in today’s world we have to work ten times harder than we did 60 years ago just to be as financially as stable as them.