Food Inc. most important film I have seen in a while

[Cyrus]

It isn't a cop out because:
This, I think, is the principle problem with such documentaries that makes people think they are more important than they really are. Documentaries are *NOT* journalism, they are movies. And independent ones at that. 60 Minutes is a news magazine, associated with a real news organization. It has fact checkers to make sure the stories they run are truthful, editors to look out for the reputation of the organization by not reporting garbage, and most importantly, a journalistic code of ethics that they typically make an effort to follow.

An independent documentary, on the other hand, is entirely the brain child of one person (actually, in this case, two), who may or may not care at all about such things as journalistic ethics, fairness, and accuracy. And unlike a 60 minutes reporter who does a different story every week, that s/he probably didn't even pick himself (and so has no personal interest in the story), a documentary filmmaker often spends years on a topic they are passionate about, a sure-fire recipie for bias, even if he intends to be fair.

It is a huge mistake to approach a documentary like this believing you are just watching an extended episode of 60 Minutes.

I watched a clip from it (perhaps a trailer, perhaps the intro) on Youtube and was quite undewhealmed by the mixture of shock tactics (wait, the Perdue company really kills chickens??) and anti-corporate propaganda. It has the feel of a generic hippie rant*, not a 60 Minutes piece. The commenters on YouTube knew the score, though: every one on the first two pages had a favorable opinion of it, but even they understood that the only people who bother with such things are those who are already passionate advocates of the cause(s) the filmmaker is promoting.

*And your mega paragraph follows the mold, mixing large helpings of anti-corporatism, animal rights activism, anti-governmentism, extremist environmentalism, and Americans-are-fat -ism with its points about food quality. But even if those food quality points are legitimate (and maybe only 20% of the points in that paragraph were on that point - all the rest were unrelated rants), all of the other ranting just turns people who aren't already advocates off to the topic.

Actually, Americans are fat. I was at a talk by a lady from the CDC who said just that. She even had a chart showing obesity rates over the last ten years.

 

[JaredJames]

Um guys...
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2247725&postcount=22
It was Gravenewworld that made that comment.

Right, when I said 'I made that comment...' I didn't mean you had made a mistake and I wanted it corrected. I simply meant, "I said this and this is why", I gave a reason why I said it as I thought you didn't realize the full point of my post, which was in response to gravenewworlds post where he states it.

In response to gravennewworlds post, how can a viewer decide if the material is worth anything? If the video looks factual and professional, appears to be done with a 'fair' viewpoint, the less informed viewer will take it as fact or may even be coerced into believing it as so. These 'documentaries' are not always regulated for accuracy and if the viewer doesn't realize this they are likely to believe whatever is said in it.

We don't just dismiss the work, but pieces which are strongly 'anti' or 'pro' something are generally extremely biased in what they show and without good representation from the people they are attacking it is dificult to form an unbiased view based solely on the evidence in the video.

 

[gravenewworld]

In response to gravennewworlds post, how can a viewer decide if the material is worth anything? If the video looks factual and professional, appears to be done with a 'fair' viewpoint, the less informed viewer will take it as fact or may even be coerced into believing it as so. These 'documentaries' are not always regulated for accuracy and if the viewer doesn't realize this they are likely to believe whatever is said in it.

Once again, it is illegal to make claims against an organization such as a business or a person that aren't true. You can't make a film making wild accusations that aren't true and wide release it to the public.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libel

And did you completely ignore the whole bit where I pointed out which novels this film was based upon, the people who wrote them, and the magazine the information appeared in?

I mean an Emmy award winning director, who also contributes to The Atlantic Monthly , clearly knows nothing about film making or investigative journalism right?

Tell me exactly how a film maker is supposed to make a two sided story if the other side completely refuses to participate? In fact, the film comes off as much more balanced when you go to the websites of the responses of the companies who are criticized in the film. Food companies so far have also neglected to address the issue of using illegal immigrant workers, which was a major part in the film, in their responses.

Tell me how an uniformed consumer is supposed to separate fact from fiction from a piece of propaganda like this:

http://www.monsanto.com/foodinc/

How can a viewer decide if a documentary is worth anything? Objectivity. The film at least tries to achieve objectivity---which proved to be an impossible task given the fact that one side refused to participate. Here's an idea. If you think the film is so biased, why don't you actually sit through the whole thing and then point out which claims the film makes aren't true or have been distorted instead of making more assumptions?

We don't just dismiss the work, but pieces which are strongly 'anti' or 'pro' something are generally extremely biased in what they show and without good representation from the people they are attacking it is dificult to form an unbiased view based solely on the evidence in the video.

I'm sure these works came off as strongly 'anti' or 'pro' something too:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743487621/?tag=pfamazon01-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1561290505/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Are their works to be dismissed?So just because they use a different form of media besides film somehow makes their work better or more reliable?

 

[Averagesupernova]

Wal-Mart also does not carry milk that comes from growth hormone treated animals because that is what consumers have been demanding.

Are you telling me that ALL Wal-Marts in the US do not carry milk that comes from hormone treated animals? I'm pretty sure that Wal-Mart at least in parts of IL uses the same milk everyone else uses. I have a brother-in-law that is a manager at a milk processing plant and Wal-Mart is a significant customer of theirs. I'll see what he says, but I think I already know.

 

[gravenewworld]

Are you telling me that ALL Wal-Marts in the US do not carry milk that comes from hormone treated animals? I'm pretty sure that Wal-Mart at least in parts of IL uses the same milk everyone else uses. I have a brother-in-law that is a manager at a milk processing plant and Wal-Mart is a significant customer of theirs. I'll see what he says, but I think I already know.

You're right I should clarify. Wal-mart's private brand of milk, Great Value, will be hormone free.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/03/21/afx4802050.html

Sam's Club only offers milk from suppliers who are hormone-free. In fact, Kroger grocery stores as well as Costco also carry milk that contains no rBST.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Once again, it is illegal to make claims against an organization such as a business or a person that aren't true. You can't make a film making wild accusations that aren't true and wide release it to the public.

Most often false claims are not actually made. Instead information is presented in such a manner as to insinuate something which is false. Take for instance the claims in The Future of Food that no testing was required of GM foods. If you pay attention they insinuate, but never directly claim, that the USDA, EPA, and FDA have not required testing of GM foods. They also take several quotes out of context which seem to indicate that government officials say GM foods needn't be tested when paying close attention to the verbage its obvious they were originally talking about GM foods needing special testing or more testing than other types of food. They theorize about taking genes from a flounder and putting them into a tomato, never actually claiming such a thing was done, and then say that this is the sort of thing that GM food makers do. They refer to rats getting stomach lesions when GM tomatos were tested on them and made a big deal out of this supposed side effect of the GM tomato ignoring the fact that tomatos are highly acidic fruits that will give anyone who eats a diet consisting of nothing else stomach lesions, otherwise known as ulcers. These are just a few examples that I saw in that movie and I only watched half that film.

Edit: I will have time later tonight and possible watch at least some of Food Inc.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

the movie isn't even available online. :-/