"Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices" and "Roger and Me"

By VALERIE KOVNER 

The two documentaries “Wal-Mart: the high cost of low prices” and “Roger and Me ” both  equally evaluated and showed the lives of the working poor. Although sharing some minor similarities such as that they each focus on the poor but from different angles, expose corporate greed and the two documentaries are also very different from each other because one focused on the openings of Wal-Marts around America while the other focused on the effects of closing the GM factories around America.

 The documentary “Wal-Mart: The high cost of low prices” focused on one issue How Wal-Mart is the world's greatest evil: (and I agree).  It did shine some light on those affected by Wal-Mart super low wages and unfair treatment of human beings, but it felt rushed and unorganized.  The movie felt like a random collection of scattered facts on Wal-Mart and their wrongdoings. The movie did shortly focus on the family that owned a plumbing store and explain how Wal-Mart swooped in and ruined not only the private business of these people but also their town.  It was later  refreshing to see people protested Wal-Mart from moving into their neighborhoods/towns and  resisting against their grip on low prices and low wages. The documentary not only exposes Wal-Mart but also the government and how it's constantly providing supplements to “boost the economy” but in return that cities education budget and other city financed things like the maintenance of parks  stops existing and the community and the children end up feeling the blow. Overall the documentary exposes Wal-Mart for what it truly is, and it accurately shows the before and after of cities that have been affected by the new existence of Wal-Mart's all over America. 

The second documentary “Roger and Me” follows the  ex-journalist Michael Moore as he pursues GM's CEO Roger Smith to confront him.  This documentary focuses on the effects that the closing of the first GM Factory that was opened  had on the small town of Flint, Michigan.  Since GM Factory was a major part of the city and closing of it had a huge impact on town. Through out the movie Michael Moore was tracking down (unsuccessfully) the CEO Roger Smith so that he can maybe convince him to visit Flint and show him how the closing of his factory has affected that city. This documentary also exposes the corporate greed of one of America’s biggest car manufacturers: The GM Corp. was not losing money at the time when the factory was closing in Flint, they simply moved the factory to Mexico to make a bigger profit. Even though GM  most likely knew what would happen to Flint economically: it was going to go down in economic flames because of this drastic change.

This documentary exposes corporate greed and the fact that the CEO of GM is a heartless man of steel who doesn't care about his workers.  Most of which have been working for his factory for 20 to 30 years.  The documentary showed what happened to Flint after the closing of the factory and how the city and the people in it attempted to pull their city out of poverty. This documentary is a devastating story of a once economically sound town and how it struggled to keep afloat after the closing of the GM Factory.

Although these documentaries are very different, they have many similarities.  The most discussed throughout their length the corporate greed of Wal-Mart and GM.  Wal-Mart is corporately greedy because they use the system.  They purposely underpay their employees so that they can be eligible for government assistance and then the corporation wont have to spend money on the employees Health Care. GM's corporate greed lies within themselves really. The the only reason they close down the factory in Flint was to simply open the same exact one in Mexico to make a bigger profit.  The GM Company didn't even consider how the closing of the factory would affect the people of the town.  Another similarity between these two documentaries is but they shown are each corporate giant affected the community where they closed a factory or where they build a brand new one.

The two documentaries were very informative and interesting to watch. Although “Wal-Mart the high cost of low prices” was attempting to quickly cover all the bases of Wal-Mart's evil doings (all with which I agree with), which it did very successfully. It might of have been better if the documentary focused on one subject but non the less it still carried out its purpose. The second documentary “Roger and Me” was heartbreaking and was a little outdated (because of the year it was filmed). The documentary felt like it was split into 3 parts: Mr. Moore trying to talk to Roger Smith, the sheriff evicting (what seemed like) the whole city of Flint, and Mr. Moore getting kicked out of placed while trying to talk to/ reach/ find out where Roger Smith is. Through out the documentary some parts felt like they were over used (the evictions that were spread through out the film), and there were some that were totally unnecessary and made me want to stop watching the film (the skinning of a rabbit,  while it was still alive.....I think). Although this documentary didn’t make a strong enough point  it still made its message across. Both of these documentaries show the lives of the working poor and how corporations effect them, they also show how powerless people are against them (how Flint couldn’t really do much), or how strong they can be when they truly want to (when people protested against the building of a new wal- mart in their town). Over all they inform the consumer about the true goals and the treatment of their workers of the 2 of America's biggest corporations.