The two movies, Metropolis and Modern Times relate the consumption of a city to its rate of production and ability to satisfy its citizens.
The movies illustrate how individuals struggle to fit into a society that is industrialized and highly developed beyond their imagination. The city’s pace of production and development is so fast that they have almost exceeded their consumption rate.
More so, in Metropolis the production process is vigorous as the city is based on an advanced platform for a modern city. The movie is full of authoritarianism scenes depicted when Maria addresses her workers in the course of production.
Thus, this supports the scenery of consumption in the city of Metropolis since the growth rate and development of the city is so fast and in the process supports the scenery of production.
Furthermore, the city’s fast growth rate is proof that there is enough consumption to support production scenery depicted with advanced machines and tools.
The scenes of production in Modern Times are depicted by Chaplin and show the major difference between the scenery of consumption and production. Chaplin, who works in a factory, is overworked with the pace at which machines are used in the assembly line (Flom 23).
Chaplin is poor and cannot even afford basic necessities even the ones that he takes part in their production. This same theme is present in Metropolis where there is a division between the poor and the rich among the people involved in the consumption scenery and those involved in the production scenery.
The relationship suggested from these two movies is that the people involved in production and those involved in consumption are two classes apart, especially when it comes to their way of living.
In the two cities depicted in the movies, there are two separate classes of individuals; those involved in production and those in consumption. The people who take part in production are not the same people who consume the products they produce.
It is a harsh world in these cities since the consumers are the rich and they misuse the poor to help produce goods without enough remuneration.
The poor involved in production occupy the low social class while the rich who are the consumers occupy the rich social class. Thus, it is from the scenery of production and consumption that lead to the development of two social classes; the poor and the rich.
The members of the poor social class work hard. Maria’s workers in Metropolis are overburdened while Chaplin in Modern Times is driven nuts by the fast pace of the work process which he cannot handle (Flom 45).
Apart from that, he is poor and even those people he associates with are depicted as poor and unable to afford even a loaf of bread, such as the girl running away from the police because she has stolen bread.
On the other hand, Metropolis shows how the rich live their life idling during their free time. The son of the ruthless leader of Metropolis spends his time idling with other children of the rich.
In conclusion, the sphere of consumption undermines the sphere of production due to the difference in social class of the producers and the consumers.
Thus, it shows that one sphere exploits another in the process of boosting production, and in the modern ethical world this cannot be allowed by the numerous human rights organizations.
Works Cited
Flom, Eric. Modern Times and Metropolis, London, UK: McFarland, 1997. Print.