The Corporation

I went to see the documentary The Corporation at Macalester the other night. Man, what an amazing movie! It had tons of famous people talking about the role that corporations have played in the past and do play in our society.

SYNOPSIS (from the website www.thecorporation.com)

THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a "person" to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

Turns out, if corporations were people, they would be psychotic. The movie really picks at your brain and you heart, it shows some really sad, scary and funny images- all in the two and a half hour span. It's a very intense experience.

There was a very interesting piece on media that I think was particularly connected to what we do in CTEP- they talked about advertising and marketing to children. Some of this stuff is just so absurd! I don't even know. Mind boggling. I think I have to see it again.