The Corporation is a documentary written by Joel Bakan in 2003, which revolves around the attainment of legal status by corporate companies, which accords them the privilege of enjoying similar rights as human beings. It brings to the fore the social injustices that corporate companies commit in their business ventures. The Corporation reaction paper seeks to shed light on different opinions for and against the corporate world brought out by the documentary.
Summary of The Corporation Documentary
The Corporation (2003) focuses on the development of modern business corporations, starting from an entity originating as a governmental agency to a contemporary financial institution endowed with legal human rights. The film mainly looks at US corporations. One of the key themes of the film is the assessment of corporations as humans.
The Corporation Reaction Paper: Ethical Analysis of the Documentary
Although a corporation is viewed as a human with a conscience, it has a dark side that seeks to leave a trail of destruction whenever it goes out on a profit-making initiative. Incidentally, it does not regret doing wrong as an average person does. For the most part, corporations aspire to make maximum income per unit of input used in the production process. From The Corporation documentary review, it is evident that employees know that they are not free to do as they please, as pointed out by Sam Gibara, former CEO and chairman of Good Year Tires (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation).
As shown in the film, corporations will make even the tragedy of others a business venture, in total disregard of what befalls others, as recounted by Carlton Brown (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation). It is noted in the documentary that corporations have made profits out of everything, including those that are essential to human life.
The Corporation Rhetorical Analysis
After The Corporation documentary analysis, it is clear that several stylistic devices are employed in the documentary as far as ethos, pathos, logos, and fallacies are concerned. Ethos is shown when senior officials of corporations like Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the carpet company, give their views in the documentary to give it credibility (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation).
Seemingly, pathos is demonstrated where people who have stood by the truth suffer dire consequences, like Ken Saro Wiwa, Jane Akre, and Steve Wilson, as evidenced by the documentary (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation).
Regarding logos, viewers are taken through logical analysis to get the idea of how corporations can bring social vices, as recounted by Sir Mark-Moody Stuart, the former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation). The fallacy is brought out when corporations assume that they can manipulate human beings into giving them their products, whether good or bad, as explained by Initiative’s vice president Lucy Hughes (Achbar, Abbot: The Corporation).
The Corporation Documentary: Criticism
The documentary raises the concern about ethical issues. However, it supports the idea of public resource governance too much but fails to outline the social injustices these governments commit under the pretext of managing public resources. It also gives great credit to communism without exploring some of the negative sides of the same. The full movie also fails to collect evidence and facts about these corporations but instead gives a subjective opinion about the issue.
The Corporation 2003 Movie Reflection
Corporations are out to maximize the monetary outcome of every input they employ in production and are, for the most part, less concerned with who gets hurt. Corporations need some legal framework to ensure that they take into consideration the effects of their business ventures on society and protect themselves from being unfairly labeled.
Nowadays, there is a legal requirement that a certain percentage of their profits should be given back to society through corporate social responsibility. Therefore, it is not objective to conclude that corporations are ruthless and will make their income and walk out, not caring about their repercussions to the general society.
Works Cited
The Corporation. Dir. Achbar, Mark and Abbot, Jeniffer. Narr. Mikael, J., Mikela. Zeitgeist Films, 2003, Film.