Another good political film: "Mardi Gras: Made In China"

[mcscajun]

Gives you a good look at how globalization is working over there, and over here.

It's on Sundance tonight at 10:30 EDT. I'm sure there are other airings coming up. I saw it early this year, and it was Quite an Eye-Opener. Highly Recommended!

This is from an review earlier this month:

August 10 - "Mardi Gras: Made in China" documents the sacrifices that support an American institution.

By Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
August 11, 2006

Early in the documentary "Mardi Gras: Made in China" a reveler in New Orleans is asked if he knows where the beads around his neck come from. "Don't know, don't care!" he shouts over the din. "They're beads for boobs, man!"

(snip)

Fortunately Redmon is smart enough to come at the problem sideways. He pointedly does not offer solutions or even condemnations but simply humanizes workers, partyers and even the intelligent, candid factory owner. "Mardi Gras" cleverly juxtaposes the apex of American bacchanalian excess with the politely sweatshop-like conditions that facilitate the fun, but rather than prissily lecturing the audience, the filmmaker mostly lets the people and images speak for themselves. There is arresting footage of one woman working at incredible, machine-like speed, shown virtually without comment. And there's plenty of whooping, vomiting partying on Bourbon Street, including enough nudity to illustrate exactly what some women do for those shiny pieces of plastic — factory owner Roger gushes in recollection, "My God, they love my beads!"

Redmon also has a talent for getting great sound bites out of his interview subjects. Roger matter-of-factly explains that he wouldn't allow men to constitute more than 10% of his workforce because "we still believe it is more easier for us to control the lady workers." After the owner of an American company that is Roger's primary customer waxes rhapsodic about how the factory needs barbed wire to keep people out and that the workers labor in silence to maximize their earning power, Redmon confides that the penalty for talking on the factory floor is a day's pay.

(snip)

Although for some it may ruin the romanticism of drunken women exposing themselves to drooling strangers with cameras for cheap plastic beads, "Mardi Gras: Made in China" is a thought-provoking, canny piece of filmmaking that puts flesh, blood and garish multicolored baubles on the skeleton of globalization.

http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/news.html

[dddem]

1. Thanks for the reminder.

[LeighAnn]

2. Untangling the Beads

One of my jobs at Tricou House was helping to untangle the Mardi Gras beads (like, 100,000 of them) and the guy I was working for told us, "Make sure and wash your hands when you're done. Those things have been pissed on!" and I said, "How do you know?" and he said, "Well look, they're made in China, probably by Chinese prison labor. If you were in a Chinese prison making shit that looked like this, wouldn't you piss all over them before you shipped them out?"

That was when I first heard about this issue.

[mcscajun]

3. The issue is worth paying attention to, but that remark about piss

is out of left field. That employer of yours is some piece of work. Probably tells people the local Chinese restaurant buys cats, too. :eyes:

Still, washing your hands after handling any manufactured item right out of the box is a good idea, no matter where it's been made, and that's got nothing to do with urine. It's just good hygiene in general.