Roger And Me Essay Example
Roger And Me Essay Example

Roger And Me Essay Example

Available Only on StudyHippo
  • Pages: 3 (803 words)
  • Published: November 13, 2016
  • Type: Essay
View Entire Sample
Text preview

The movie “Roger and Me” by Michael Moore is a documentary film about Roger Smith’s takeover of General Motors in the late 1980’s. Michael Moore documents the change in the movie from the economy in the city of Flint, Michigan. He attempts to find Roger and meet with him and talk about General Motors and the changes that have been made. He wanted to convince him that the changes were devastating Flint. Michael Moore has a hard time finding Roger because he is a busy man. Throughout the film, Moore goes around Flint and interviews random people on the changes being made.

He also shows buildings in Flint and how the looks of Flint changed. The situation in Flint, Michigan can be seen from many angles. The angles I saw it from were th

...

e conflict theorist’s view, social interactionist view and the functional analysis view. The conflict theory view is looking at who has the power, how they’re using the power, and who they’re influencing with it. A conflict theorist would view Roger Smith as using his power to ruin the town of Flint, Michigan. He became the CEO of General Motors and started to make changes right away when he found he had the power to change.

He started this by laying off many auto workers at the Flint auto plants so General Motors could make new plants in Mexico. General Motors was making record profits when he decided to do this. The auto workers that were laid off had a hard time finding other jobs because there were none out there. Moore shows those who struggle after they were

View entire sample
Join StudyHippo to see entire essay

laid off or affected by General Motors. He stresses that those people have been treated unfairly. He views social classes in the area as Karl Marx would view them. The wealthy are seen as heartless and the poor are seen as innocent laborers.

This causes a conflict between the two social classes. When the jobs were destroyed, extreme unemployment rates arose and it let to high crime rates and stealing food and clothing for the needs of survival. The social interactionist view can be applied to this movie because; meaning is attached to human behavior by people. Throughout the movie, Roger Smith is seen as an evil figure. Everyone that Moore interviews view General Motors and Roger Smith as the devil because of what he has done to the town and people of Flint.

Lastly, he functionalist perspective can be applied to this video because a functional analysis view is looking at the big picture and how everything works or doesn't work together. Functionalists would say that it was a good step for General Motors to close its plants in Flint because it will bring in more profits and allow General Motors to grow larger. Having cheaper labor in Mexico will lower the prices of new cars too. On the other hand, General Motors is being dysfunctional by closing the plants since that is where most of the citizens of Flint work.

Unemployment caused the economy of Flint to decline. Stores were going out of business because there wasn’t money to be spent, and that created even more unemployment. The people who lost their jobs had a very hard time trying to

find another because there were not many jobs available. C. Wright Mills argued that the way sociological imagination works is between “personal troubles” and “public issues”. The scene that made sociological imagination clearest to me was with the woman who raises rabbits.

The “personal troubles” in the rabbit scene is, the only way the woman can make money is selling the rabbits for food and income. She is raising them because of Flint being out of jobs. The “public issues” in this scene are, the city is running out of jobs and people are unemployed. The public has an influence on her and how she is unemployed. In the scene, she raises the rabbits for income and that relates to what Roger Smith did to the people of Flint. It is like the relationship between the employer and their employees.

The rabbit woman says she raises the rabbits to the age of four months and then kills them; that way, they are nice and tender. In the scene, she holds a rabbit and then states that it will be her dinner. She kills, skins, and guts the rabbit in front of the camera. It leaves us who watch the movie, an image showing that there is no difference from what General Motors has done to Flint and what she does to rabbits. It shows that people should not be treated like the rabbits; they need to be treated like people. The dialect in this scene relates very well to Roger Smith and General Motors.

Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New