The Corporation

The film The Corporation touches on many issues with corporations and how it affects not only Americans, but how corporations affect third world countries as well. To begin, The Corporation explains that a corporation is considered to be a "legal person" and can buy and sell property. For example, corporations, like Nike, buy property in third world countries, such as Indonesia, and bring work to many people in the area. These corporation are looked at as a godsend by all the citizens desperate for work, sadly many of these citizens are children no older than thirteen years. They are paid anywhere from two cents to ten cents an hour. Once there are no longer as many desperate workers, the corporation sells the property and buys another property somewhere else, so they can continue to pay workers the absolute minimum.

Corporations are also shown in this film to have a lack of concern for others. One example can be seen in the chemicals corporations sell in aerosol, which caused cancer and far more toxins. Corporations try to make these causes sound trivial. If that example is not enough to prove their lack of concern, Monsanto produced agent orange, which caused over 50 million birth defects. They settled out of court for a measly 80 million dollars, never admitted guilt, and the deformed children of Vietnam were thrown a few dollars to shut up.

Posilac is a growth hormone, also made by Monsanto, that is injected into cows for the milking process to be more abundant. Even though milk is overproduced in America, Monsanto found this necessary, and that all farmers should be using it. Posilac gave these cows painful injections. Not only is this inhumane, but because of infection during the milking process puss is also released in the utters of the cows and this makes the bacteria go up in the milk, but using Posilac is suppose to be completely beneficial. If you do not see this as completely beneficial, you are not alone. Canada refused to allow Posilac on Canadian cows.

Moving into the advertising part of this film, it highlighted some things discussed in Klein's No Logo, and Ohman's Selling Culture. Through reading these texts, it is well-known now that corporations advertise to make people believe that they need their product, and their product will make their life better in some sense. The Corporation however, also addresses how corporations are now advertising directly to children. The commercials are especially more manipulative than they have ever been before. These toy corporations play on the undeveloped, and still developing parts of children's brains to help sell their product, and even show the children how to nag their parents. In a study that The Corporation shows, nagging raised their sells up to 40 percent.

Advertising with manipulation to children may be new, but manipulation by corporations is surely not. The fascism in Europe is a great example of this. Fanta Orange was made out to be "the Nazi drink" so Coca-Cola could continue to sell their products, regardless of the innocent people being killed. IBM was another corporation which profited off the genocide in Germany. Everyone in Germany had a punch card with codes one through six on them. This determined what the Nazi's were to do with them, such as one being released or six being the gas chamber or shot. All of these punch cards were supplied by IBM, which collected their profits shortly after the war. The Corporation shows what corporations would not like to be seen, but seeing the atrocities, and just the forms of advertisement definitely makes anyone who watches this film to be more cautious and aware of what corporations do to make their profit.