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Handbook: advice to filmmakers


Primark – on the rack
Mangetout
Ilha das Flores
Bllod, sweat & takeaways
Girl model
Ghosts
UDITA


Reach new audiences
Pop the bubble
Change consumer behaviour
Change corporate behaviour
Improve pay and conditions
Show what’s possible

Hold ’em accountable
Blame, shame & guilt
Lie to tell the truth
Start somewhere different
Involve consumers
Humanise workers
Find the unions
Find a character
Give workers the mic!
Encourage empathy
Juxtapose extremes
Suggest concrete action
Encourage feminist solidarity

Attack your critics
Liar! Fraud!
VWow đŸ’„ WTF?
I’m so angry
This is disgusting
Guilty as charged
I just cried
I gotta do something
Who’s responsible?
These people are inspiring

Now we’re talking
Corporations change
I shop differently now
Workers suffer
Activism is inspired
Debts are paid off
Workers’ pay & conditions improve

Image credits

Conversation (https://thenounproject.com/icon/conversation-6769395/) by kliwir art from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)




Get people to reflect, not recoil

IN BRIEF

More about this page.

We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?

Question

How can I make an effective trade justice documentary?

Answer

Screenshots of Mantheesh testing sequins in Primark – on the rack.

Primark caught? Nope! They fired back. Attacked their critics. ‘Liar! Fraud! The footage is fake!’ I didn’t know who to believe. Commenters argued over who’s right. This pivotal scene of Mantheesh became about everything but his struggles. Backfire! Panicking, Primark abruptly closed the three factories blamed of outsourcing and child labour. Rid themselves of the problem, leaving ‘hundreds of garment workers in an even worse position than before’ (Arnott; 36; in Adley et al., 2025). Workers suffer.

Thanks to the film, ”good days’ for Mantheesh have come to an abrupt end’ (Hunt; 22, in Adley et al., 2025). 😳 . This is the opposite of its intention. I’ve used this example to show you how impactful film can be – and how risky. DON’T lie to tell the truth. Workers might suffer.

SO.. let’s start smaller – a different angle. Target consumers. Try to change consumer behaviour. If you want people to rethink where their stuff comes from, pop the bubble. All activists need to shine light on the hidden realities (Duncombe, 2012). Cook and Woodyer (2012) explain how the ‘fetish’ of commodities hides the hands making them. So, as Boyd says (2012; in Duncombe, 2016, 122), you must make ‘the invisible visible.’ Showing the workers juxtaposing extremes can do this – it gets people questioning without blame, shame or guilt – which clearly didn’t work for Primark on the Rack.

Mangetout and Ilha das Flores did this. But you can’t just throw any scenes together.Bloomfield and Sangalang (2014) helped me get this – you’ve gotta show the relationship between the scenes, like cause and effect, or moral contrast – so people connect the dots themselves. Leave space for imagination (Cook et al., 2007; 118). Like how Mangetout juxtaposes middle class diners who ate mangetout ‘between outbursts of smug crassness, [as] the African pickers were being treated as slaves’ (Holt, p.5; in Cook et al., 2025). Meanwhile Mark Dady, Tesco manager, smiles over his workers. It showed how Tesco policy exploits workers who completely rely on them, ignorant of their struggles, giving more attention to the vegetable than those producing it. Tesco weren’t explicitly blamed – viewers drew ‘their own depressing conclusions’ (Truss, np, in Cook et al., 2025) about how the workers were treated. I was so angry!

Screenshots of Mark Dady, Tesco buyer, visiting the farm (top left), Blessing Blessing Chingwaru, the farm’s chief mange-tout picker (bottom left) and the UK home counties dinner party guests eatinjg and discussing mage-tout farming in Zimbabwe: all from Mangetout.

Ilha das Flores also juxtaposed extremes showing the tomato-connected lives of workers, animals, and consumers. For some, it hit hard – ‘impossible not to shed tears while watching’ (Anon; 17; in Pavalow, 2025). Wow đŸ’„ WTF? I was shocked seeing dead bodies, children eating scraps a family had previously deemed inedible. But the shock didn’t lead me anywhere. If you look at Chouliaraki (2010), she explains this problem. She says when films show suffering too graphically or abstractly, they risk fetishising all over again. It becomes a spectacle of disgust (Lissner, 1981; 32, in Chouliaraki, 2010). I felt bombarded.

Screenshots from Ilha das Flores.

So, same technique, totally different outcomes. Emotions can work against you ⚠ . Ilha das Flores left people feeling disgusted – by the end ‘I just felt like being sick’ (Redroom Studios, np; cited in Pavalow, 2025). Disgust can make your audience recoil (RyynĂ€nen, Kosonen, and Ylönen, 2023). Someone said ‘the holocaust images made me stop watching’ (@andrewsharpe2587, np, in Pavalow, 2025). Not exactly the spark you need to fuel activism.

But anger you can work with! Anger at Mangetout’s revelations inspired activism. Read Micheletti and Stolle (2008, p.749) to understand this emotional mobilisation. They explain how strong emotions like anger can drive change consumer behaviour and change corporate behaviour. That’s an effective outcome! Unlike disgust, anger is intentional (RyynĂ€nen, Kosonen, and Ylönen, 2023). Mangetout was effective because, as Brown and Pickerill (2009) explain, there was somewhere to aim it: Tesco. Tesco felt pressured to join the Ethical Trading Initiative. Corporations have changed! SUCCESS!! 🎯 You see there are different ways to apply pressure. Different emotions get different responses. Get people to reflect, not recoil.

Targeting consumer audiences seems to be effective – you can target them other ways! Try to change consumer behaviour. Kahn (2016) explains that consumers are more responsible than ever – the solution to fast fashion problems! Make them feel they gotta do something.

Involving consumers can be a powerful way to show them how to change. Blood Sweat and Takeaways tried this by taking 6 British food lovers to ‘walk-a-mile’ in workers’ shoes in Thailand and Indonesia (Cuthbertson; 46; in Clarke et al., 2025). Millions watched – it reached new audiences and opened viewers’ eyes: ‘I never gave much thought to where my food comes from’ (Lynn, np, in Clarke et al, 2025). But the show failed to tell viewers how to help – ‘boycott tuna or buy more of it?’ (Sutcliffe 2009 np, in Clarke et al., 2025).

đŸ€” What was the point? Instead, it focused on participants’ personal journeys, like Manos’ emotional revelation and apology to the workers shown below. It didn’t push for social change (Gupta and Fawcett, np, in Clarke et al., 2025), and letting consumers ‘play at’ being workers only extended the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Yang, 2017; 61).

‘I have to apologize … I need to change.’ British food lover Manos apologies to Indonesia fishermen in Blood, sweat and takeaways.

You must TELL consumers what to do (Haug and Busch, 2016). Explicitly link consumer habits with workers’ lives. In Primark on the Rack, a young woman is shown video evidence of children working on a top from Primark that she owned. She was shocked! Guilty as charged! Trust in Primark – gone. ‘It’s the end of the affair’ says McDougall (Panorama, 2008; 48:43). Consumer behaviour changed 👍 . people said they’d shop differently now 👍 . Did they?

Screenshots of journalist Mark Heap shows a British consumer some foilm footage of the children who made her top, in Primark – on the rack.

I felt guilty too. All those times I’ve ventured to Primark for another cheap top. But what about the factory owners I’d seen? The children’s parents? Who’s responsible? I started justifying my actions, I’m a student. I can’t afford to shop elsewhere. ‘How dare that reporter incline towards that woman [shopping] in anyway that it’s her fault for buying clothes from Primark’ (Maddox 2008 np; in Adley, 2025). Young (2003) explains this response. Guilt is backwards-looking, people get defensive (Bartky 2002; in Yang 2017) and angry. Instead of collective action, blaming a consumer caused resentment and refusal to take responsibility (Young, 2003). I came to a dead end. But then I returned to Young (2003). She says you want to show people that it’s everyone’s responsibility.Y ou need to show them how to make a difference, but don’t blame. Guilt isn’t always effective.

So avoid responses that will backfire. Your doc could be more effective by humanising workers. Get people talking about them. You’ve learnt about emotional responses – which ones should you evoke? Here you could turn to Kemp (2025) who explains that empathy can motivate helping behaviour and catalyse action (Nash and Corner, 2016). You want action! So encourage empathy.

The unintentional popularity of Girl Model shows that finding a character can really effectively connect an audience to workers struggles through empathy. ‘It became ‘essential viewing for adolescent girls’ (Burr, 2012, np; in Hambly et al., 2025) because people had been emotionally impacted. Aspiring model Nadya (13) is carted off to Tokyo with hope for a better life, and money for her family. But these promises dissolve and the glamour and gloss of the industry was stripped away (Kermode, 2012, np, in Hambly et al., 2025). The images show her real emotions under the fake glamour. I just cried ‘I wanted to give Nadya a hug, because I felt her pain’ (DisturbedPixie, np; in Hambly et al, 2025).

Screenshots of Nadya Vall modelling and crying IRL, in Girl Model.

The rawness of disappointment touched a nerve. Canning and Reinsborough (2012) explain that your audience cares more when they relate. So you could include relatable characters to engage your audience. Point your camera towards the workers and it becomes an ‘empathy machine’ (Jackson in Nals, 2018; 135). But there was nothing I could for Nadya. I was invested but at a dead end. But Ghosts shows how empathy CAN effectively inspire action.

Ghosts finds a character: Ai Qin. We follow her closely as she migrates to the UK for better wages and work. But she becomes trapped in a modern slave system. She repeatedly suffers. She cries and then
 I cried.

Screenshots of modern slave Ai Qin in Ghosts.

My emotions mirrored hers (Nals, 2018). Her plight comes up to you like an unforgiving tide (Keak np; in Allen et al., 2025). You want to help her. Some viewers said that showing her ordinary emotions brought her closer to ‘us’ bridging a ‘gulf’ between viewer and subject (Brass; 346; in Allen et al., 2025), but I felt like I was framed in an oppressor vs oppressed dynamic (Bardan, date; in Pereen, 2014; 44). She was a victim, the audience are saviours (Pereen, 2014; 44). Ghosts ends with the Morecambe Bay tragedy: Ai Qin survives, but viewers learn the victims’ families struggle with debt. Broomfield established the Morecombe Bay Victim’s fund (O’Keeffe 2006; in Allen et al., 2025) and emotionally-connected viewers, now cast as saviours, donate to clear these debts. Debts are paid off.

So if you encourage empathy and suggest concrete action you can drive effective change. But this help was temporary. And empathy donation relationships rely on the colonial gaze being maintained (Hall, 1992; in Chouliaraki, 2010) which is part of the problem. Your film can use empathy to get immediate change, but you need to switch it up to improve workers pay and conditions long-term.

Individualising and blaming consumers and corporations can undermine your goal. An effective doc must promote trade justice without endangering workers. So start somewhere different. Let workers take the mic. Like UDITA (Arise) did. Following 5 female union workers, it shows what’s possible: powerful, collective action – ‘women’s hope and commitment to create better conditions for the next generation’ (Spooner; 32, in Barker et al, 2025). These people are inspiring. Empowered workers showed how resistance is already improving pay and conditions (Siddiqi, 2019). They had a voice – and knowing best how the garment industry should change (Khan, 2016), they can tell us what they want – (O’Neill, np; in Barker et al, 2025).

Left: screenshot from UDITA.

I could no longer excuse ignoring how my t-shirts are made because ‘[T]he actual garment workers themselves are saying that they want us to shop consciously. WE CAN DO IT’ (Gregory, np, in Barker et al., 2025). It shows that the workers don’t need ‘saving’ – PrimarkOn the Rack showed how victimising workers can harm their interests (Siddiqi, 2019), moving beyond the ‘us’ and ‘them’ divide. Before, I was encouraged to be a guilty consumer . Now I was encouraged to be a feminist in solidarity – an important move for audiences to make because it shows the collective responsibility we all have – that workers need to resist too (Young, 2003; 42).

After so much despair, witnessing their resilience gave me hope. Your film can help apply pressure in the right places. Find the unions and help them to improve pay and conditions. Inspire viewers to work collectively. Make it forward-looking (Robin Zheng, 2019). Show there is an alternative, and you will make real change.

Left: screenshot from UDITA.

So to improve pay and conditions: target consumers and corporations, but be cautious ⚠ . Get people talking about the workers, and mobilise emotions like empathy and anger into concrete action. Collate these ideas – have a theory of change and apply pressure from different angles. Like UDITA, give workers opportunity to show what’s possible to give the audience hope, a sense of togetherness.


+25 sources

Brown, G. and Pickerill, J. (2009) Space for Emotion in the Spaces Of Activism. Emotion, space and society, 2(1), pp. 24–35

Canning, D. and Reinsborough, P. (2012) Lead With Sympathetic Characters. in Beautiful Trouble. OR Books, p. 146

Chouliaraki, L. (2010) Post-humanitarianism: Humanitarian Communication Beyond a Politics of Pity. International journal of cultural studies, 13(2), p. 107–126.

Clarke, M Thomson, B. Bartley, V. Ibbetson-Price, K. Christie-Miller. E. & Schofield, H. (2025) Blood, Sweat & Takeaways. followthethings.com/blood-sweat-takeaways.shtml (last accessed: 28th April, 2025)

Cook, I. and Woodyer, T. (2012) Lives of Things. in The Wiley‐Blackwell Companion to Economic Geography. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, p. 226–241

Cook, I. et al. (2007) ‘It’s More Than Just What It Is’: Defetishising Commodities, Expanding Fields, Mobilising Change. Geoforum, 38(6), p. 1113–1126

Cook, I, et al., (2025) Mangetout. followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml (last accessed: 28th April, 2025)

Duncombe, S. (2012) It Stands On Its Head: Commodity Fetishism, Consumer Activism, And The Strategic Use Of Fantasy. Culture and organization, 18(5), p.359–375.

Duncombe, S. (2016) ‘Does It Work? The Æffect of Activist Art. Social research 83(1), p.115-134.

Duncombe, S. (2023) A Theory of Change for Artistic Activism. The Journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 81(2), pp. 260–268

Hambly, A, King, E, Keogh, A, Renny-Smith, C, Callow,E, Thorogood, J & Alloy, V (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml (last accessed: 28th April, 2025)

Haug, A. and Busch, J. (2016) Towards an Ethical Fashion Framework. Fashion theory 20(3), p.317–339

Pavalow., M (2025) Ilha das Flores. followthethings.com/ilhadasflores.html (last accessed: 28th April, 2025)

Kemp, D. (2025) Comparing Disgust and Sadness: Examining the Interaction of Emotion and Information in Charity Appeals. Journal of social marketing, 15(1), p.42–58.

Khan, R. (2016) Doing Good and Looking good: Women in ‘Fast Fashion’ Activism. Women & Environments International Magazine, 96/97, p.7-9

Kister, J. and Wenner, M. (2024) Living Wages as Life Boat to Rescue Fairtrade’s Values for Hired Labour? The Case of Indian Tea Plantations. Die Erde: journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin 154(3), p.80-94

Micheletti, M. and Stolle, D. (2008) Fashioning Social Justice Through Political Consumerism, Capitalism, And The Internet. Cultural studies 22(5), p.749–769

NÄls, J. (2018) The Difficulty of Eliciting Empathy in Documentary. in Brylla, C & Kramer, M. (eds) Cognitive Theory and Documentary. Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan, p.135-148

Nash, K. and Corner, J. (2016) Strategic Impact Documentary: Contexts Of Production And Social Intervention. European journal of communication 31(3), p.227–242

Peeren, E. (2014) The Spectral Metaphor: Living Ghosts and the Agency of Invisibility. London: Palgrave Macmillan

RyynÀnen, M., Kosonen, H.S. and Ylönen, S.C. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16

Siddiqi, D.M. (2009) Do Bangladeshi Factory Workers Need Saving? Sisterhood In The Post-Sweatshop Era. Feminist review, 91(91), p.154–174

Yang, J. (2017) Screening privilege: global injustice & responsibility in 21st-Century Scandinavian film & media. PhD thesis: University of Oslo (https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/70905/Yang%2bPhD%2bScreening%2bPrivilege.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y last accessed 28th April 2025)

Young, I. (2003) From guilt to solidarity: sweatshops & political responsibility. Dissent 50(2), p.39-44

Zheng, R. (2019) What Kind of Responsibility Do We Have for Fighting Injustice? A Moral- Theoretic Perspective on the Social Connections Model. Critical horizons : journal of social & critical theory, 20(2), p.109–126

SECTION: advice

Written by Abbie Gollings, edited by Ian Cook (first published July 2025)

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Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork

followthethings.com
Grocery

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork
A documentary film dirercted by Eyal Sivan for Trabelsi Productions.
Trailer embedded above, search online for streaming options here.

Imagine visiting your local supermarket and popping a bag of Jaffa branded oranges in your basket. Then imagine browsing your favourite news site on your phone in the checkout queue and reading the latest story about deaths in Gaza, war in the Middle East. Maybe you’ve read a lot about this conflict, or have some first hand experience. But news stories don’t tend to explain its background, how and why it began. That bag of oranges – and this documentary film – can help to do this. Jaffa is an ancient Palestinian city. It’s also where Jaffa-branded oranges have been grown by Arab and Jewish people since the 1800s. Once picked, they would wrap each individual fruit in tissue paper, pack them into wooden boxes, load them onto boats and ship them wordwide. A year after the birth of ‘practical photography’ in 1839, Palestinian photographer Khalil Khaed visited Jaffa to document everyday life and work, including in its orange groves. Photographers, filmmakers, artists and advertisiers have documented the connection between Jaffa and oranges ever since. But, as the Israeli state began to take shape in the 20th Century, this film argues that there was a concerted attempt to remove Palestine from Jaffa oranges and to rebrand them as emblems of Israeli civilisation. It’s settler Colonialism 101. To piece this history together, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan spent five years sifting through numerous archives for Jaffa-orange photos, films, advertising and resistance. He showed what he found to Israeli and Palestinian people- academics, poets, retired orange workers, advertising executives, others – and filmed their reactions. What he created from this footage is – many have said – a profoundly insightful and moving documentary. It has generated considerable critical and public acclaim from audiences around the world. First screened in 2009, it is still a go-to documentary to spark debate about the Palestine-Israel conflict today. And Sivan continues to attend screenings to answer questions about the film and the futures that might be possible in the region. Sivan’s politics, and films, are anti-Zionist. He has struggled to raise funding and to gain screening opportunities in Israel. He and his films have generated criticisms of anti-semitism. But the main argument in ‘Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork’ is that, if Arab and Jewish people were able to work together harmoniously in the past – like they did in Jaffa’s orange groves – they can do so in the future. You have to see this to believe this. Why not watch the film? Read the comments below. See what you think. We’ve tried to captire all of the discusion we’ve found online.

Page reference: Lucian Harford (2025) Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork. followthethings.com/jaffa-the-oranges-clockwork.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 67 minutes.

Continue reading Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork
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Handbook: advice to filmmakers


Girl model
Mangetout
From India’s ginger fields to the table
Ghosts
Primark – on the rack


Pop the bubble
Cross cultures
Tell the truth
Show capitalist evils
End violence & exploitation
Change corporate behaviour
Teach economic geographies

Have a theory of change
Target the right brand
Follow the thing
Tell the truth
Tell a story
Include emotion
Encourage empathy
Find & give inspiration
Workers take the mic!
Find a character
Create a character
Bring managers into view
Show the violence
Include suffering kids
Juxtapose extremes
Blame, shame & guilt
Encourage feminist solidarities
Add mood music
Silence your critics

This is so sad
This is disgusting
I’m so angry
I just cried
These consumers are insane
Capitalism is sh*t
These people atre inspiring
This gives me hope
I want to find out more

Now I know!
Now we’re talking
Activism is publicised
Activism is inspired
Debts are paid off
Governments intervene
Corporations change

Image credits

Conversation (https://thenounproject.com/icon/conversation-6769395/) by kliwir art from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)




Choose the emotion that won’t let go – then hit ‘record’

IN BRIEF

More about this page.

We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?

Question

How can I make an effective trade justice documentary?

Answer

Now, for your film to be effective, its intentions must lead to real-world impact. To generate the greatest impact, I suggest having a theory of change đŸ€” AKA a strategy to maximize your film’s effectiveness. This will help you focus on a specific TJM issue to create meaningful and targeted 🎯 change (Duncombe, 2023)!!!

OK … let me tell you a story. It’s 2008. I’m watching ⚜ football. Age 6. Suddenly, it’s half-time. A charity’s plea for donations appears on the TV. Starving Sudanese children đŸ‘¶đŸż scatter the screen. Their exposed black ribs protrude from the telly stabbing 🗡 into my young eyes – bringing them to tears 😱. WHY do I still remember? Emotions imprint far deeper than facts ever can – so your film must aim not just to inform, but to include emotion that will shake your viewer.

In April, I walked past Primark. My attention focused on glossy posters of young girls 👧 posing. Slowly, their faces distorted into Nadya Vall from Girl Model. Filmmakers follow this 13 year old girl from Siberia to Tokyo, chasing her dream to become a model. But it falls apart and she cries for help. The image burnt đŸ”„ into my brain 🧠. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nadya.

Screenshots of girl model Nadya Vall in Girl Model.

Filmmakers use tactics to trigger đŸ€ź 😭 😱 đŸ˜« 😡 😳 😊. Girl Model finds a character in Nadya who ‘gives the film a clear protagonist'(Saito in Hambly et al., 2025, np) creating a bond between the viewer and Nadya (Nash & Corner, 2016). The film includes suffering kids 👧 as Nadya cries to return to her impoverished home which is contrasted with Ashley, Nadya’s manager, who is free to wander her ‘cavernous Connecticut mansion’ 🏡 (Lucca in Hambly et al., 2025, np).

Screenshots of model scout Ashley Arbaugh in Girl Model.

By bringing a manager into view, filmmakers reveal Ashley’s apathy through unsettling imagery – strange dolls đŸȘ†and eerie photo cut-outs of models – which underscore her ‘disconnection from the modelling world’ (Redmon in ibid) and Nadya (Natter & Jones III, 1993). These tactics together encourage empathy đŸ„čby helping viewers really understand Nadya’s suffering → which often makes viewers sad (Redmon in Hambly et al., 2025; Dant, 2012).

Screenshots of Ashley’s baby doll collection and covert snapshots in Girl Model.

It worked! It’s ‘saddening’ â˜č (Almachar in Hambly et al., 2025, np). I’m so sad. Sadness is ‘a response to and feeling of loss’ (Kemp, 2025, p.44). Myself and others found Girl Model pretty ‘disturbing’ (Cli in Hambly et al., 2025, np)
.it’s disgusting đŸ€ź . These feelings are brought on by violations of morality and with these physical feelings of revulsion đŸ€ą, the film’s message hits deeper into the viewer’s heart ❀ (RyynĂ€nen et al., 2023).

By not ramming information down our throats, Girl Model told the truth – ‘a veritĂ© narrative’ (Sabin & Redmond in Hambly et al., 2025, np) and this amplified 🔊 the film’s impacts â˜č đŸ€ź (Sabin & Redmond in Hambly et al., 2025).

Activism was inspired! Someone else made a film, people asked how they could create change, and conversations roared online – this engagement with the film is the first step toward real change 
 now we’re talking 💬 (Sabin & Redmond and Bleasdale in Hambly et al, 2025).

So now we know about Nadya’s exploitation
. our knowledge is the starting point for action âœŠđŸœ.

Hold on ⛔. Wenzel (2011) warns that consumers often confuse gaining knowledge with meaningful action. As a result, films can end up re-fetishizing commodities, simply generating new demand: dammit đŸ˜€ (ibid).

BUT WAIT! Nash and Corner (2016) explain how to overcome this
..emotions can be just as powerful, if not more so, than knowledge. By fostering emotional attachment to an issue, films have the potential to stimulate genuine action, not just passive awareness (ibid)!!!!

OK, now I know emotions are important. Girl Model got people â˜č and đŸ€ź. Mangetout got people 😡.

Mangetout popped the bubble by confronting Brits ‘with their most popular supermarket Tesco actually running a farm in Zimbabwe’ (Miller in Cook et al., 2025, np). Crossing cultures and following the thing traces the journey of mangetout peas đŸ«› ‘from African soil to English dinner plate’ (Phillips in ibid) exposing the interconnected web of commodities and their externalities along the way (Callon, 1998). BAM đŸ’„ my commodity fetishism đŸ«§ was popped ← Marx can #RIP đŸȘŠ (Cook et al., 2002).

Screenshots of the farm, the TESCO HQ & the dinner table in Mangetout.

Tesco veg buyer Mark Dady travels to Zimbabwe bringing managers into view. He inspects Chiparawe farm [code đŸ§‘â€đŸ’» for] he bullies farmers to grow the perfect đŸ«› for minimal Ps đŸ’· (Aaronovitch in Cook et al., 2025). Mark’s arrival 🛬 is accompanied by imperial music to add mood music đŸŽ” which juxtaposes extremes with Zimbabweans singing ‘Tesco’s our dear friend’ đŸŽ€(Holt in Cook et al., np; Friedberg, 2004). Juxtaposition is useful to filmmakers cos it helps highlight stark inequalities (Wenzel, 2011)!

A juxtaposition đŸ‘šâ€đŸ« masterclass




Screenshots from Mangetout.

Mark âŹ†ïž demands farmworkers trim the đŸ«› leaves for the consumer’s benefit …! Grannie âŹ‡ïž explains her past traumas while a British consumer at a dinner party âŹ‡ïž says workers – like Grannie – ‘are probably happy in their mud hut’ (O’Malley in Cook et al., 2025, np).

Screenshots of the dinner party guest and farm worker Grannie from Mangetout

These tactics juxtaposes British consumers đŸ€”â€â™‚ïž with Zimbabwean farmworkers đŸ‘©đŸŸâ€đŸŒŸ leading to a response of these consumers are insane – they’re called arrogant, bstards, and c&*ts (in Cook et al., 2025). Contrasting consumers with producers provokes viewers to rally đŸȘ§ against the dinner party guests (Wenzel, 2011). Viewers were so angry 😡 at Tesco 👿 that they wanted to ‘kick in the TV’ đŸ“ș (Jema in Cook et al., 2025, np). Anger helps prompt action by breaking viewer passivity (Chouliaraki, 2010). In response to Mangetout, Tesco joined the Ethical Trade Initiative showing ‘the ability of film to intervene in the foodscape’ (Richardson-Ngwenya & Richardson in Cook et al., 2025, np). Corporations changed đŸ’„đŸ’„đŸ’„ because of political consumerism (Stolle & Micheletti 2013).

Effective. Intentions → Impacts. But just a word of warning, triggering tooooo strong emotions can backfire. Chouliaraki (2010) – worth a read 📚 btw warns of the boomerang (viewers resent blame, shame & guilt tactics ) and bystander effects (viewers feels powerless 😬). The trick is to deliver enough emotion to spark action 🧹 without triggering paralysis or resentment đŸ«©.

But From India’s ginger đŸ«š fields to the table doesn’t trigger strong emotions at all. 👎 A major flaw?

Screenshots from From India’s ginger fields to the table.

It’s an I-Doc 🎩. Viewers choose clips đŸ“œ and in what order they’re watched. Interactivity facilitates participation in making a film rather than simply consuming it → this immerses viewers (Aston, 2022). This film teaches economic geographies (Ananthanarayana, 2025). It shows slow violence caused by ginger cultivation but it’s hard to show violence that takes place over many years ⏳ (ibid; Davies, 2022). It overcomes this by showing communities suffering consequences of slow violence which impacts viewers emotionally 💓 which is what Davies (2022) recommends!

Screenshots from From India’s ginger fields to the table.

Viewers wanted to find out more. To ‘work out the puzzle đŸ§© of seemingly disconnected clips’ (Anon in Ananthanarayana, 2025, np). But responses were ‘not emotionally charged’ đŸ€Šâ€â™‚ïž (ibid). Still, now we’re talking; viewers ‘told their house about the film’ (ibid). 🆒 Knowledge is dispersed. But was this an effective film?

IMO
No. It nailed interactivity. But the lack of emotional response means the film risks creating passive awareness đŸ€·â€â™€ïž rather than action (Nash and Corner, 2016). Films have to get the viewer emotionally.

That’s where Ghosts đŸ‘» comes in. A fictional film. Based on the ‘true story’ (Broomfield in Allen et al., 2025, np) of 23 Chinese migrant workers who died 💀 at Morecambe Bay in 2004. It tells the truth 💯 and shows capitalist evils by telling the story of Ai Qin and ‘the chain of labour that exploits illegal immigrants’ (Romney in ibid). Telling stories are effective as they help viewers connect to characters which moves them emotionally 💓 (Nash and Corner, 2016). The film created characters AND found characters! Lead actors were Chinese migrants → ‘neither actors nor themselves’ (Martin in Allen et al., 2025, np).

Screenshots from Ghosts (bottom right: Ai Qin goes food shopping).

Oh and also, Ghosts showed the violence đŸ˜Ąâ†’đŸ€• workers endured in Morecambe bay forcing the viewer to imagine themselves there (Wenzel, 2011). These tactics combine to include (so much raw) emotion in Ghosts meaning viewers know ‘this is the real thing’ (Anon in Allen et al., 2025, np).

Screenshot from Ghosts of ‘the fight between indigenous and migrant
workers’ (Martin in ibid).

Then I cried 😭. Having built an attachment to the workers, having seen the violence they were victims of, the scene where they drown đŸŠâ€â™€ïž was TOO MUCH! It’s difficult ‘ NOT to cry’ (Johnjoe66 in ibid). Viewers feel helpless which combined with feeling so sad 😞 they just cry 😭 (Frome, 2014). Ghosts shows how ‘unchecked capitalism haunt[s] this deeply felt film’ (Geall in Allen et al. 2025, np). Ugggh, capitalism is sh*t! ← 😱 😡 đŸ˜© đŸ€ź.

Screenshot from Ghosts.

But … something positive … debts were paid off ← ‘the crippling debts inherited by the families of the victims of the Morecambe Bay Tragedy have been paid off’ (Anon in ibid).

Screenshot from the Ghosts website.

Emotion + Knowledge = Action❗2008 → 2025 and a film still makes me 😭. Ghosts đŸ‘» worked.

Now, Primark on the rack 👕👗 worked but wait for the 👀 twist. It showed capitalist evils by exposing Primark’s suppliers using child refugees from Sri Lanka as wage labourers in India, earning just ’19p a day’ 😞 (Williams in Adley et al., 2025, np). Capitalism f*cking failed these people đŸ«© (Chellan, 2023). By targeting the right brand – one with ‘170 stores nationwide’ (Williams in Adley et a., 2025, np), filmmakers tried to change corporate behaviour by ‘set[ting] up [their] target’ 🎯 (Maroney in ibid). Exposing the discrepancies between Primark’s brand image and reality hit 👊 them hard ← exploiting their corporate vulnerabilities ❌ ruining reputations, provoking them to change (Micheletti & Stolle, 2008; Cook et al., 2019).

Screenshots from Primark – on the rack.

Want a strong reaction? Like Girl Model, include suffering kids 🔀 Capitalism is sh*t ← ‘An inequality-enhancing machine’ 🏭 (Wright, 2015, np).

BUT THERE’S A PROBLEM!!! The filmmakers [allegedly] ⚠ fabricated ⚠ a scene of children working in Bangalore – the ‘footage was not authentic’ (Greenslade in Adley et al., 2025, np). Child exploitation is socially unacceptable, and I think the filmmakers đŸŽ„ took advantage of this to incite 😡 😱 đŸ˜© đŸ€ź (Aguigar et al., 2008). Primark tried to silence đŸ€ their critics by challenging the filmmakers but this backfired because of the Streisand Effect → activism was publicised đŸ€Ż (Cook et al., 2018). Prioritising PR 🧯drew more attention 👀 to their exploitation
 ‘what about the other children that featured in THE REST OF THE ONE HOUR FILM’ (emilynew in Adley et al, 2025, np).

With public outcry magnified 🔎, corporations changed. In 2013, the Rana Plaza clothes factory collapsed killing over 1,100 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Cook et al., 2018). Primark’s response was to spend £9 million 💰to support local communities – or to (try) cover their arses (ibid).

An EFFECTIVE film. But the filmmaker who exposed Primark also found out (ibid). The film would have triggered the desired anti-capitalist reaction without the fake footage ← something to avoid đŸš« when making your film!

Uh-oh, back to Rana Plaza. I’m welling up. But I’m crying 😭 because UDITA is inspiring.

Over 5 years, UDITA follows female garment factory workers in their mission for justice before and after Rana Plaza. Ending violence and exploitation was the goal – ‘Udita shows the agency of these women’ (Minney in Barker et al., 2025, np) to overcome injustice. It encourages feminist đŸ€œđŸ»đŸ€›đŸœ solidarities giving women greater confidence and knowledge to DEMAND their rights (Hale & Willis, 2007). Its ‘just the workers voices’🗣 (Rainbow Collective in Barker et al., 2025, np).

Screenshots from Udita.

In UDITAworkers take the mic 🎙! Collective action is key to taking down capitalism (McLaren, 2019). By finding and giving 🌞 inspiration – ‘like the inspirational Ratna Miah’ (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np), there is one overriding response: these people are ‘inspiring on a global level’ (ibid) 🌍. Inspiration is powerful âœŠđŸœ cos it encourages the viewer to emulate the inspiring women in UDITA (Thrash and Elliot, 2003). And the best bit? It worked alongside other emotions. This is so sad. I’m so angry. This gives me hope (Season Bangla Drama in Barker et al., 2025, np).

Screenshots from UDITA.

This hope encourages other people to continue with their own activism (Brown & Pickerell, 2009). UDITA inspired activism as people globally challenge injustice through their own community campaigns đŸ€— -‘I am filming everything to collect evidence for our own community campaign’ (Salmon in Barker et al., 2025, np). And there’s more! Governments intervened. In France, legislation changed because ‘Rana Plaza was covered by newspapers, petition of NGOs, film, documentary’ (Evans in ibid) like UDITA. đŸ€© WHOA! That’s real change âœŠđŸœ.

RIGHT, so what’s my answer???

Effective films use emotions 😡 😱 😭 đŸ˜© đŸ€ź đŸ€— đŸ«© đŸ€Ż đŸ€© to provoke responses that galvanise action. So think carefully before locking in your theory of change. Choose the emotion that won’t let go – then hit 🔘 ‘record.’ By shaking viewers emotionally and making them feel injustice, you’re not just making a documentary – you’re starting a movement âœŠđŸœ.

Think of Nadya 😭, Grannie 😡, Ai Qin đŸŠâ€â™€ïž, the children 👧 of Primark, and the women đŸ§•đŸœđŸ§•đŸœđŸ§•đŸœ of Dhaka.

Effective films ignite emotion. Now you know. Get out there and inspire change! ✹


Aguigar, P., Vala, J., Correia, I. & Pereira, C. (2008) Justice in Our World and in that of Others: Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Victims. Social Justice Research 21(1), p. 50-68.

Allen, H., Heaume, E., Heeley, L., Hedger, R., Johnson, S., McGregor, O. and Webber, L. (2025). Ghosts. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/?p=10357 last accessed 27 April 2025)

Ananthanarayana, B. (2025) Untitled [Q&A video & transcript], GEO3123: Geographies of material culture. University of Exeter.

+28 sources

Aston, J. (2022) Interactive Documentary: Re-setting the Field. Interactive Film and Media Journal 2(4), p.7-18

Bannister, L. & Bergan, R. (2023) A timeline of UK trade and trade justice. London: Trade Justice Movement

Barker, T., Collier, J., Baker, A., Coppen, L. and Eve, H. (2025) UDITA (ARISE). followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/?p=1593 last accessed 27 April 2025)

Brown, G. & Pickerell, J. (2009) Space for emotion in the spcaes of activism. Emotion, space, & society 2, p.24-35

Callon, M. (1998) An essay on framing & overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology. The sociological review 46(1), p.244–269

Chellan, N. (2023) The life of capitalism. in his F/Ailing capitalism and the challenge of COVID-19. Leiden: Brill, p.180-216

Chouliaraki, L. (2010) Post-humanitarianism Huamitarian communication beyond a politics of pity. International journal of cultural studies 13(2), p.107-126

Cook et al, I. (2018) Inviting construction: Primark, Rana Plaza and Political LEGO. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 43(3), p.477-495

Cook et al, I. (2019) A new vocabulary for cultural–economic geography? Dialogues in Human Geography 9(1), p.83-87

Cook et al, I. (2025) Mangetout. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed 27 April 2025)

Cook et al, I. (2002) Commodities: the DNA of capitalism. (https://followtheblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/commodities_dna.pdf last accessed 27 April 2025)

Dant, T. (2012) Mediating morality. in his Television and the moral imaginary. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 147-178

Davies, T.,(2022) Slow violence and toxic geographies: ‘Out of sight’ to whom? Politics and Space 40(2), p.409-427

Duncombe, S. (2023) A Theory of Change for Artistic Activism. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 81, p.260-268

Friedberg, S. (2004) The ethical complex of corporate food power. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22, p.513-531

Frome, J. (2014) Melodrama and the psychology of tears. Projections 8(1), p.23–40

Hale, A. & Willis, J. (2007) Women Working Worldwide: transnational networks, corporate social responsibility and action research. Global Networks 7(4), p.453-476

Hambley, A., King, E., Keogh, A., Renny-Smith, C., Callow, E., Thorogood, J. & Alloy, V. (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml last accessed 27 April 2025)

Kemp, D. (2025) Comparing disgust and sadness: examining the interaction of emotion and information in charity appeals. Journal of Social Marketing [online early], pp. 42-58.

McLaren, M. (2019) Global Gender Justice: Human Rights and Political Responsibility. Critical Horizons 20(2), p.127-144.

Micheletti, M. & Stolle, D. (2008) Fashioning social justice through political consumerism, capitalism and the internet. Cultural Studies 22(5), p.749-769

Nash, K. & Corner, J. (2016) Strategic impact documentary: contexts of production & social intervention. European journal of communication 31(3), p.227–242

Natter, W. & Jones III. J.P. (1993) Pets or meat: class, ideology & space in Roger & Me. Antipode 25(2), p.140-158

RyynÀnen, M., Kosonen, H. & Ylönen, S. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16

Stolle, D. & Micheletti, M. (2013) Does political consumerism matter? Effectiveness and limits of political consumer activism repertoires. in their Political consumerism: global responsibility in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.204-243

Thrash, T. & Elliot, A. (2003) Inspiration as a Psychological Construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(4), p.871-889

Wenzel, J. (2011) Consumption for the common good? Commodity biography film in an age of postconsumerism. Public culture 23(3), p.573-602

Eric Olin Wright (2015) How to be an anti-capitalist today. Jacobin 12 February (https://jacobin.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-democracy/ last accessed 27 April 2025)

SECTION: advice

Written by Luke Elkington, edited by Ian Cook (first published July 2025)

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Barbie’s Dirty Secrets

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Gifts & Seasonal

Barbie’s Dirty Secrets
A documentary film presented by Isobel Yeung, and produced by Alasdair Glennie for Zandland, first broadcast on Channel 4, UK.
Available on YouTube, embedded above.

Journalist Isobel Yeung latches onto worldwide success of the 2023 Barbie movie and its feminist critique of the toy industry to ask about the lives of the women who make these dolls in factories in China. She drives around Los Angeles in a Barbie pink Jeep, picking up expert passengers who know about Mattel – the LA-headquartered company that makes and markets this doll – and about the wealth enjoyed by its CEO Ynon Kreiz. These scenes are intercut with Yeung’s phone calls to a fixer in China who is tasked to get an undercover reporter into a Barbie factory wearing a hidden camera. This reporter lasts just one day handling scolding hot plastic Barbie limbs with her bare hands, and is withdrawn for her own health and wellbeing. A second undercover reporter then gets a job assembling plastic figures from a forthcoming Disney Moana movie. He seems to last a day or two, unable to meet rising quotas for new employees, but he captures conversations with his co-workers about life and work in the factory. This undercover footage is shown to a representative of a labour rights NGO who is horrified by the violations that she sees. The film then shifts its attention to another Mattel brand – Fisher Price – and a dangerous cot which has been linked to the deaths of babies, and legal cases against the company. [We don’t detail this below, because we are interested in the way that this film connect the labour, marketing and consumption of Barbie dolls]. Our website has documented many landmark examples of trade justice activism when it was new – from the late 1990s in particular – and when it could have shock value and noticeable impact. Audiences in the 2020s, however, seem no longer to be shocked to find labour exploitation at the end of a supply chain. Corporations are better set up to handle the damage that such revelations may or may not do to their reputations and sales. And ‘trade justice activism’ like this is now pitched by production companies to broadcasters as a form of ‘buzzy’ media content. But, for us, there are glimmers of a more complex theory of change at work here. Less than a week after Barbie’s dirty secrets was broadcast, a China Labor Watch report was published that detailed exploitative and dangerous factory conditions in Barbie factories in China. Isobel Yeung refers to such a report in the film. The role that Barbie’s dirty secrets therefore had, we speculate, was to work alongside this NGO research, to make the report’s findings public, and to connect accusations of Mattel’s feminist corporate hypocrisy through the same media as the Barbie movie: film. Should anyone studying trade justice activism expect to final any single example having an impact in and of itself? No. And is possible to follow just one thing? It doesn’t look like it here. Check the comments below.

Page reference: Lucian Harford (2025) Barbie’s Dirty Secrets. followthethings.com/barbies-dirty-secrets.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 44 minutes.

Continue reading Barbie’s Dirty Secrets
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Handbook: advice to filmmakers


Blood, sweat & takeaways
Girl model
UDITA
Mangetout


Show capitalist evils
Tell the truth
Improve pay & conditions
Change citizen behaviour

Humanise workers
Encourage empathy
Encourage feminist solidarity
Find a character
Include suffering kids
Spend some time
Workers take the mic
Encourage a boycott
Bring managers into view
Hold ’em acountable
Blame, shame & guilt
Place things carefully
Stage a Q&A
Make a website

This is so sad
I know how they feel
Oh shut up
I’m so angry
Wow đŸ’„ WTF?
Capitalism is sh*t

Now we’re talking
Activism is inspired
Activists are recruited
Corporations change
Workers’ pay & conditions improve

Image credits

Conversation (https://thenounproject.com/icon/conversation-6769395/) by kliwir art from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)




Yes, it’s small. But that’s the point

IN BRIEF

More about this page.

We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?

Great idea!

But let’s get one thing straight: eïŹ€ective doesn’t just mean making your audience cry into their ÂŁ5 Primark hoodie. That’s easy. The hard bit? Sparking activism that actually changes things. You’ve got to wade into global trade’s murky world and make a dent, however small, to improve pay and conditions for the workers who keep it running.

That’s the heart of trade justice activism. It targets the deep unfairness baked into international trade – the fact that 85% of the world hustles to keep a privileged few comfy (Campbell Stephens, 2021).

It’s about telling the truth: exposing how the global economy puts corporate profit over human rights and workers’ dignity (Hadiprayitno & Bağatur, 2022, Miller, 2001). And asking: who’s really winning here?

Spoiler: it’s not the workers.

The goal? Democratise trade governance – fairness, sustainability, accountability. Your film can’t just show suïŹ€ering; it’s got to hit harder. Rip back the curtain on capitalist evils and spark reflection that shifts citizen behaviour.

And how do you get there? Enter your ✹ theory of change✹ . Duncombe (2023) calls it the Artistic Activism model: real change happens when activism blends emotion, ideas, and action. A great trade justice documentary makes us feel (empathy, anger), think (about justice, fairness, solidarity), and do (push for change).

You don’t just want audiences to witness suïŹ€ering – you want them to feel it. That’s when you get under their skin.

Empathy is the magic sauce. “A pathway to audience engagement” (Nash & Corner, 2016). But fragile. Your mission? Make people care, not just pity. As Krznaric (2007) puts it, true empathy is an imaginative leap into someone else’s world.

But if all you spark is tears and a shrug, you’ve missed your moment. Empathy without direction? Dead end. Turn that feeling into something stronger: solidarity.

So how? First tactic: find a character. Or a few!

Canning & Reinsborough (2012) spell it out – personal stories are what hook people in and encourage empathy. NĂ„ls (2018) adds: we need full human backstories, not snapshots. Dreams, struggles, strength. Faces, not faceless crowds.

That said – choose your characters wisely! Cough, Cough
..Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. Six Brits dropped into Southeast Asian factories to “lift the veil on voiceless workers” (Rees, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). But my standout memory of episode one: Olu, the bodybuilder, brawling in a tuna 🐟 factory and smashing a window đŸ’„ . Iconic.. for all the wrong reasons. And wow, did viewers have thoughts t. “It was ruined by a fight” (Anon, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). “Our great nation couldn’t have chosen worse ambassadors” (Whitelaw, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). Yeah. Not quite the “takeaway” they were going for. 😬

Screenshots from Blood, sweat & takeaways (centre: from the fight between Olu & Manos)

Bonus tactic: include suïŹ€ering kids. Brutal but eïŹ€ective. Bruzzi (2018) and Aguiar et al. (2008) show nothing hits harder than childhood innocence wrecked by adult-made systems. That’s emotional dynamite. 💣

Then: spend some time with workers. Humanise them. That’s how you swap sympathy for real empathy. Cook & Woodyer (2012) say good films “re-attach” workers to fetishised products, showing real people with struggles and strength. Slow it down, keep the footage raw (CuïŹ€ et al., 2016). Show whole lives – not just snapshots.

And now, the gold-standard examples.🏅

Girl Model. Forget glitz – this film drags us into the dark side of (child!) modelling. Following Nadya, 13, tape-measured, plucked from Siberian, bye family, flown to Japan, wide-eyed and hopeful. What unfolds? Debt, loneliness, shattered dreams – and one deeply creeptastic scout. The camera lingers, vĂ©ritĂ©-style, as her world cracks. (Tactics ✔ ✔ ✔ ). It worked. Viewers felt it. An “Uncomfortable, eerie
.saddening” film that “sticks with you” (Almachar, 2012 in Hambly et al., 2025). “I wanted to give Nadya a hug, because I felt her pain” (DisturbedPixie, 2013, in Hambly et al., 2025). Bang – empathy landed. I know how they feel. 😎

Screenshots from Girl Model (featuring Siberian child model Nadya Vall).

Blood, Sweat and Takeaways? đŸ©ž 💧 🍔 – Despite casting hiccups, it nailed key moments too. Six youngsters in factory grind, each with a backstory. Find some characters. Pick your Brit to feel with (CuïŹ€ et al., 2016). And the win? We met the workers – not props.. And the audience noticed. @myoldvhstapes (2022, in Clarke et al., 2025) summed it up: “The young woman
.at the chicken plant spoke of her little son, her plans for his future, her need to make money for him.” Brass (2007, in Clarke et al., 2025) nailed the takeaway: “Migrants are portrayed as ordinary people, like us
 same kind of hopes and fears.”

Screenshots of British cast members in Blood, Sweat & takeaways empathising with their Indonesian host at home in the city and visiting her son in the countryside.

And when empathy lands? The classic: This is so sad. “It’s really sad” (CToppa, 2022, in Clarke et al., 2025). “Made me sad” (Season Bangla Drama, 2015, in Barker et al., 2025). People hook in and can’t shake it (Brown & Pickerill, 2009). Sadness sparks reflection (Kemp, 2025) – a win, but it’s only step one. As Chouliaraki (2010) warns, too much victimhood risks sliding into pity. We don’t want grief tourists or white saviours (McLaren, 2019). We want viewers moved to stand with, not just cry for, workers. Encourage empathy đŸ€Encourage solidarity.

One solution? Workers take the mic. đŸŽ€ Participatory filmmaking, as Roberts & Lunch (2015) explain, lets workers represent themselves – as agents, not victims.

Enter Udita: the blueprint. Five years, no Western narrator, no saviours. Just Bangladeshi garment workers telling their own stories. Factory collapse, unimaginable loss, marches, unionising, fighting back. Raw. Unfiltered. Their pain, their determination – it was contagious. Henriksen (2015, in Barker et al., 2025) nails it: “There are no passive victims. Only men and women who fight for their rights.” đŸ’Ș

Screenshots from UDITA showing the Rana Plaza ruins & workers’ protests.


So yes – encourage empathy.

But keep your eyes on the prize: empathy opens the door; solidarity kicks it down.

Blame the right thing

Right! We’ve ruïŹ„ed some feathers now. Emotions are high, eyes are wide. But the real question: who’s to blame for all this pain?

Spoiler: not the consumer. ❌

We’ve all seen the blame, shame and guilt tactic in action. The classic move: “Look at your cheap T-shirt! Look what you’ve done!”

Sure, the thinking is noble – let guilt spark change (Barnett & Land, 2007). But in practice? It flops.

Guilt paralyses, triggers defensiveness, and sends audiences straight to ‘oh shut up‘ mode (Sandlin & Milam, 2008; McLaren, 2019).

Take Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. Guilt wasn’t the goal – but when you show British supermarkets and reel oïŹ€ stats about how much tuna we guzzle? It hit a nerve. As Simon (2009, in Clarke et al., 2025) groaned: “Now this programme wants to make me feel guilty about eating tinned tuna – one of the few stress-free meal options I thought I had left.” Me? Smug vegetarian mode activated: popcorn out, blaming my fish-loving friends. Not my problem.

Totally missing the point.

The message? Lost for me + Simon. Swapped for a dinner-time blame game.

And guilt-tripping? Not just unhelpful – downright unfair.

Sure, you could encourage viewers to boycott the product.

And resist endless marketing. And fight social pressure. And not shop like their friends. And spend more cash (but only on the right brands). And spot greenwashing. And cross-check the supply chain. And decode labels. And dig into corporate reports. Perhaps a degree in ethical consumption just to be sure. 😉

Fair? Yeah 
 no.

So, filmmaker: drop the guilt. If your film makes me feel like the villain? I’m out before the credits roll.

Instead. Pinpoint the villains and hold ’em accountable.

This is where your documentary punches up. âœŠđŸœ

We’re talking corporations, governments, whole supply chains – the big players cashing in while workers sweat it out.

Your film’s job? Expose hypocrisies, rip open empty promises, and hit em where it hurts: reputation. Corporations love their glossy ethics reports – but Wagner et al. (2020) are clear: when words clash with reality, trust collapses. Your audience needs to see those cracks.

Expose. Humiliate. Shame. Them. (Bartley & Child, 2014). đŸ˜€ Mangetout nailed it. A wild ride for a humble pea: zooming between smug Brits at dinner parties and Zimbabwean fields where workers sweat for pennies. The kicker? Tesco’s buyer struts in like royalty, barking orders while workers beam – grateful for crumbs from the king’s table. A clever tactic: bring a manager into view – a villain. And it landed: “Tesco became ‘evil’ for me 
 when I saw [this] BBC2 documentary back in 1997” (Chapman 2010, in Cook et al 2025). Reputational damage delivered.

Screenshots from Mangetout, including Tesco buyer Mark Dady.

But don’t stop at brands. Zoom out.

Greedy supermarkets? A symptom. Capitalism = the disease 💾 – the “inequality-enhancing machine” (Wright, 2015) that keeps the whole circus spinning. Mangetout gives us a pea’s-eye view of global capitalism – bosses, farmers, consumers, trapped in a rigged game. McLaren (2019) warns, if you stop at human sob-stories without digging into the structures – you risk propping up the very hierarchies you set out to challenge. No pressure 😉

Your real win: not fixing corporations overnight, but shifting how citizens see them – and the broken system behind them. Harder to trust, harder to excuse, harder to ignore.

You want anger. ‘I’M SO ANGRY’ 😡 . Not that useless guilt-ridden kind – something better.

Slow, collective, empathic anger (Coplan, 2011). (Wink wink: thank yourself for planting those solidarity seeds earlier.) One Udita viewer nailed it: “It made me angry
 United We Stand” (Season Bangla Drama, 2015 in Barker et al., 2025). Righteous fire aimed at the real culprits.

Capitalism is sh*t.

Here’s where Iris Young (2003) comes in clutch: it’s not about guilt – it’s political responsibility. We’re all tangled in this mess by everyday participation. Real change = Collective action. Pushing governments, corporations, the whole rigged game.

So let’s drop the tired “consumer blame” narrative. Your audience? They’re citizens, workers, voters, activists – with power way beyond their wallets (Hadiprayitno & Bağatur, 2021).

The long game

So, after all that righteous anger
 change? It’s not coming fast. Sorry. But don’t lose hope. This is where the real magic kicks in.

Sadness fades. Anger cools. But conversations? They ripple.💧

That’s what turns a trade justice doc from a one-oïŹ€ gut punch into a long-haul political tool. Done right, these films slide into the cultural bloodstream – sparking awkward dinner-table debates, furious WhatsApps, late-night Googling.

Tiny shifts that start tipping the scales.

Heim (2003) calls it slow activism: quiet, persistent, woven through everyday life. No megaphones, no instant wins – but sticky + powerful.

Girl Model has no neat resolution, but it haunted. “I watched this movie a week ago and I cannot for the life of me get it out of my head” (Zippy, 2013 in Hambly et al., 2025). The dream: a film that gnaws and won’t let go. Wow đŸ’„ WTF?

Turbo-charge those ripples! Nash & Corner (2016) say: stage Q&As, oïŹ€er follow-ups, create spaces where people don’t just feel but figure out what’s next. Place things carefully.

Like Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. The BBC made a public web forum; viewers swapped tips, vented, planned. A “hub for people
 discussing what we can do about it” (Christie-Miller, 2010 in Clarke et al., 2025). Now we’re taking.

Yes, it’s small. But that’s the point. Ripples grow networks, cement injustices in public memory.

And sometimes? They spark real-world wins. Activism is inspired.

Corporations can change. Mangetout + advocacy groups helped push Tesco into the Ethical Trading Initiative. Activists can be recruited. Girl Model saw one model-turned-activist pushing for legal reform.

Activism comes in all shapes: unionising, voting, campaigning, piling on pressure. More points of attack, stronger the punch. As Young (2003) reminds us: we’re all actors in this tangled system, each holding a sliver of responsibility.

The goal? Workers pay and conditions improve. But real change is slow, messy, and hard to pin down (LeBaron et al., 2022). No quick wins. Still, it beats flimsy “impact” stickers corporations love to flash and bury (Evans, 2020; Bohyn, 2025).

You won’t topple capitalism with a camera. But you can expose its cracks, pressure corporations to clean up, and – crucially – nurture a culture that refuses to forget. Wright (2015) spells it out: can’t topple it? Tame it (regulate). Escape it (build alternatives). Erode it (grow co-ops, unions).

Change is a marathon, not a sprint. Your film? One hell of a starting gun. đŸ’„


+26 sources

HélÚne Bohyn (2025) Omnibus Or Not, Due Diligence Is a Must: Policy Breakdown. Better Cotton, 31 March (https://bettercotton.org/omnibus-or-not-due-diligence-is-a-must-policy-breakdown/ last accessed 22 April 2025)

Erik Olin Wright (2015) How to be an anticapitalist today. Jacobin, 12 February

SECTION: advice

Written by Sophie Burden, edited by Ian Cook (first published June 2025)

Posted on

Handbook: advice to filmmakers



Pop the bubble
Show capitalist evils
End violence & exploitation

Follow the people
Flip the script
Spend some time
Tell the truth
Show both sides
Make it funny
Workers take the mic
Juxtapose extremes
Hold ’em accountable

These consumers are insane
I laughed my ass off
This is disgusting
Guilty as charged
I gotta do something
Silence your critics

Corporations are punished

Image credits

Conversation (https://thenounproject.com/icon/conversation-6769395/) by kliwir art from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)




Just showing up – again and again – can be the start of something.”

IN BRIEF

More about this page.

We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?

Screenshots from Ilha das Flores.

RyynĂ€nen et al. (2022) argue that disgust isn’t just emotional – it’s a moral alarm that ruptures what we accept as normal. This wasn’t an image designed to horrify. It became horrifying because I recognised it too late. Bloomfield and Sangalang (2014) describe juxtaposition as a “visual argument” – a structure that forces the viewer to connect what they’d rather keep apart. The film doesn’t explain the logic. It makes you feel it. Chellan (2023) helped me make sense of that discomfort: capitalism isn’t just cruel by accident. It’s a system that “privileges ownership over life.” Ilha das Flores doesn’t accuse. It implicates.

Girl Model continues this logic through quiet observation. Nadya, thirteen, is sized, and measured. There’s no voiceover. No commentary. Just a girl turned product. By following the people, the film shows how global capitalism doesn’t just move things – it moves bodies. “They are commodities. Easily replaceable” đŸ˜Ș (Dowling in Hambly et al., 2025). I agreed – and that’s what disturbed me.😟 Wenzel (2011) calls this a “commodity biography”: a mapped transformation from subject to stock. I didn’t feel pity. I wasn’t the only one who felt guilty as charged, others agreed with me on followthethings.com “every person
 [is] a collaborator or perpetrator of a
 soul-sucking enterprise” (Anon, 2012e in Hambly et al., 2025). Not because I caused this – but because we all see models in every advert ever!!! Young (2003) calls this political responsibility: the moment you realise you’re inside the structure.

Screenshots from Girl Model.

Whose pain are we watching?

If Section 1 left me wondering why I hadn’t noticed the violence sooner, these films show what happens when trade justice documentaries make that distance impossible to ignore – when they pop the bubble between comfort and consequence. In Mangetout, we begin at a Home Counties dinner party. Guests sip wine, eating mangetout, and debate “fairness” like it’s an abstract puzzle. Then, without warning, we cut to a Grannie, a Zimbabwean mangetout sorter discussing her suicide attempt. She’s calm. Precise. Not pleading – just speaking. By showing both sides, the film draws an initial equivalence between Global North opinion and Global South reality – but then cracks it open. One reviewer called it “the short and simple annals of the poor intercut with a champagne-fuelled dinner party” (Banks-Smith 1997 in Cook et al, 2025)

Screenshots from Mangetout.

I agreed – but for me, it wasn’t just contrast. It was interruption. That’s what makes this technique effective – it shifts focus from guilt to voice. It asked who gets the last word. Cook et al. (2002) describe commodities as “economic DNA” – the buried trace of hands and histories. Mangetout doesn’t just reference that. It shows it. The peas aren’t just served. They’re stitched to lives. That’s what it means to pop the bubble: to let the dinner table speak back. Valenti (2020) warns that “balance” can become distortion when all voices aren’t equally free to speak. And by flipping the script, the film resists pity. The worker isn’t reduced to pain. Her voice carries its own narrative – one that didn’t need translation. Siddiqi (2009) calls this a refusal of “global moralism” – a rejection of pity and a reclamation of voice, where workers don’t need saving, just listening.

Blood, Sweat & Takeaways overwhelmed me in a different way. The British volunteers are exhausted. They break down in the factories. Cry into their hands. Scream at each other. These consumers are insane, I thought – not because they couldn’t cope, but because their breakdowns became the story. One reviewer nailed it: “ignorance and insouciance is the important flavour here
 the BBC has carefully sifted all the good apples out to leave us only with the spoiled ones” (Sutcliffe 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). Exactly. It didn’t feel like we were watching transformation. It felt like punishment – and the workers became props in that performance. Wood (2020) calls this “emotional optimisation”: where Western pain takes centre stage, and the system itself fades. It left me frustrated, not moved.

Screenshots from Blood, Sweat & Takeaways.

Grief into power

But not every film works through contrast. Some stay – showing what happens after the worst has already occurred. One way trade justice documentaries can be effective is by seeking to end violence and exploitation not through shock, but through duration – by staying with grief long enough for it to organise. In UDITA, we see two children walking through the wreckage of Rana Plaza. They see clothing in the rubble, labelled. Each tag still reads “Made in Bangladesh.” Later, their grandmother Razia stands among a crowd of women, fists raised, chanting for justice. One reviewer captured this transformation: “[Razia] now has to care for her daughter’s children
 they walk over the rubble
 each one has a Western label” (Anon 2015b in Barker et al., 2025). I kept noticing those labels. They weren’t just part of the debris – they were the thread connecting Razia’s grief to my comfort. That scene broke me đŸ« đŸ˜ž- not because it was loud, but because it wasn’t. That’s what makes it effective: it invites presence, not pity.

Screenshots from UDITA.

That’s why this film works. It doesn’t just drop in to extract stories. It spends some time. Filmed over five years, UDITA captures the slow work of building trust – between filmmaker and subject, between worker and union. Robertson (2005) calls this “presence as method” – not just seeing, but staying. The camera doesn’t race. It follows Razia at a walking pace – into homes, into the streets, into grief. Evans (2020) describes this kind of duration as a way to break the “despondency trap”: when change feels impossible, just showing up – again and again – can be the start of something – exactly!!

Ghosts struck differently. The camera doesn’t narrate. It just watches Ai Qin, a real undocumented migrant worker, re-enact the moment of her survival. She stands on the roof of a white van as the tide rises, calling her son from the very bay where others drowned. I gotta do something, I thought. But it wasn’t guilt. It was something closer to reverence. “I won’t easily forget the shot of Ai Qin
 [North Sea] waves about to engulf the van
 making a final call to her son” (Sandhu 2007 in Allen et al, 2025). I couldn’t agree more – because it explained the scene, but because it admitted how unforgettable it was. That final call felt like it was for us. Richardson-Ngwenya and Richardson (2013) describe this as ethical representation: workers take the mic not through speech alone, but through presence. The silence becomes the point.

Screenshots from Ghosts.

Unravel capitalism

But grief doesn’t just stay personal. Some films turn their lens toward systems – and ask who gets to speak when the damage is done. Effective trade justice documentaries aim to hold corporations accountable ✊ – not just by criticising them, but by showing how they fall short of ethical practice. In Mangetout, there’s a scene that almost dares you to laugh: the Tesco flag being raised, while schoolchildren sing the Tesco song đŸŽ¶đŸŽ¶đŸŽ¶ “Tesco our dear friend” đŸŽ¶đŸŽ¶đŸŽ¶ and dance the Tesco dance. “It’s not just bizarre,” I remember thinking. “It’s dystopian.” đŸ‘œđŸ‘œ One reviewer described it bluntly: “The Tesco flag was raised while children sang the Tesco song and danced the Tesco dance” (Holt 1997 in Cook et al., 2025). It’s funny until you realise the brand is being treated like a country – with rituals, pledges, even propaganda. The scene never tells us what to think. It just lets the lie speak.

Screenshots from Mangetout.

That’s the tactic: tell the truth by letting performance unravel itself. Bartley & Child (2014) argue that when corporations become the subject of focused critique – especially ones wrapped in ethical branding – they’re vulnerable to targeted shaming. Mangetout never yells. It just watches. The effect is stronger than accusation. Cook et al. (2015) describe this kind of visual strategy as one that turns “spectacle into satire” – without needing to say a word. They make it funny. The scene made me flinch – Tesco, this is disgusting. Then I laughed my ass off. Then I felt guilty as charged. So effective – because it didn’t instruct. It implicated. It made me ask why this had ever felt normal.

Primark: On the Rack hits differently. It shows what happens when corporations don’t just deny wrongdoing – they try to silence their critics. In response to the BBC’s undercover footage surrounding child labourers, Primark didn’t quietly back away. They launched an aggressive counter-narrative. “Millions of people have been deceived by Panorama,” one spokesperson declared. “Teachers and pupils
 have been badly let down” (Primark 2008 in Adley et al., 2025). That tone stuck with me – not because it was firm, but because it felt scolding. Like they weren’t responding to a crisis – just punishing someone for pointing it out. That’s what it means to silence your critics: not to rebut, but to erase. Cook et al. (2018) call this the “Streisand effect” – where trying to bury a critique only makes it louder. It backfired. Corporations are punished not always in court, but through public exposure. And the louder the denial, the more visible the problem becomes.

Screenshots from Primark – on the rack.

Concluding thoughts

What I’ve learned is that effective trade justice documentaries don’t just expose injustice – they make it undeniable. Not with guilt, but with structure. With editing, juxtaposition, silence, re-enactment, and time. The most effective films don’t preach – they disorient. They hold back. They let injustice implicate itself. When I first watched Ilha das Flores, I thought the image of a woman scavenging waste would shock me. It didn’t. The shock came from the voiceover — that cold, rational tracking of a tomato’s value. That was my first lesson: effective trade justice films don’t just show harm – they reveal the logic behind it.

That logic reappears across the films that stayed with me: a model commodified, a corporation mythologised, a migrant re-enacting her own pain. None of these scenes told me what to feel. They let the structure speak – and made me realise I was part of it. If I were to make a trade justice documentary now, I’d focus less on persuading, more on positioning. I’d start with the worker. I’d spend time. I’d resist neat conclusions. Because effectiveness isn’t clarity – it’s complexity.

That’s what these films offered me: not closure, but craft. Not answers, but better questions. And a deeper understanding of how form can confront power – and why it must.


Allen, H., Heaume, E., Heeley, L., Hedger, R., Johnson, S., McGregor, O. and Webber, L. (2025) Ghosts. (http://followthethings.com/ghosts.shtml last accessed May 14th 2025)

Barker, T., Collier, J., Baker, A., Coppen, L. and Eve, H. (2025) UDITA (ARISE). (http://followthethings.com/udita.shtml last accessed May 14th 2025)

Bartley, T. & Child, C. (2014) Shaming the corporation: the social production of targets and the anti-sweatshop movement. American Sociological Review 79(4), p.653–679

+18 sources

Bloomfield, E. F. & Sangalang, A. (2014) Juxtaposition as visual argument: health rhetoric in Super Size Me and Fat Head. Argumentation and Advocacy 50(3), p.141–156.

Chellan, N. (2023). The life of capitalism. in his F/Ailing capitalism and the challenge of COVID-19. Leiden: Brill, p.180-216

Clarke, H., Thomson, B., Bartley, V., Ibbetson-Price, K., Christie-Miller, E. and Schofield, H. (2025) Blood, Sweat & Takeaways. (http://followthethings.com/blood-sweat-takeaways.shtml last accessed May 14th 2025)

Cook, I. et al., 2018. Inviting construction: Primark, Rana Plaza and political LEGO. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 43(3), p.477–495

Cook et al, I. (2025) Mangetout. (http://followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed May 14th 2025)

Cook et al, I. (2002) Commodities: The DNA of capitalism. (https://followtheblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/commodities last accessed May 14th 2025)

Cook, R.F., Vos, T.P., Prager, B. & Hearne, J. (2015) Journalism, politics and contemporarydocumentaries: a ‘Based on a True Story’ dossier. Visual Communication Quarterly 22(1), p.15–33

Evans, A., 2020. Overcoming the global despondency trap: strengthening corporate accountability in supply chains. Review of International Political Economy 27(3), p.658–685

Hambly, A., King, E., Keogh, A., Renny-Smith, C., Callow, E., Thorogood, J. & Alloy, V. (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. (http://followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml last accessed May 14th 2025)

Pavalow, M. (2025) Ilha das Flores. (http://followthethings.com/ilhadasflores.html last accessed May 14th 2025)

Richardson-Ngwenya, P. & Richardson, B. (2013) Documentary film and ethical foodscapes: three takes on Caribbean sugar. Cultural Geographies 20(3), p.339–356.

Robertson, R. (2005) Seeing is believing: an ethnographer’s encounter with television documentary. in A. Grimshaw & A. Ravetz (eds) Visualizing anthropology. Bristol: Intellect Books, p.42–54

RyynÀnen, M., Kosonen, H. & Ylönen, S. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16

Siddiqi, D.M. (2009) Do Bangladeshi factory workers need saving? Sisterhood in the post-sweatshop era? Feminist Review 91(1), p.154–174

Valenti, J.M. (2020) When environmental documentary films are journalism. in Sachsman D. & Valenti, J.M. (eds) Routledge handbook of environmental journalism. London: Routledge, p.99-112

Wenzel, J. (2011) Consumption for the common good? Commodity biography film in an age of postconsumerism. Public Culture 23(3), p.573–602

Wood, R., (2020) ‘What I’m not gonna buy’: Algorithmic culture jamming and anti-consumer politics on YouTube. New Media & Society 23(9), p.2754–2772

Young, I.M. (2003) From guilt to solidarity: sweatshops & political responsibility. Dissent 50(2), 39-44

SECTION: advice

Written by Jock MacKinlay, edited by Ian Cook (first published June 2025)

Posted on

Handbook: advice to filmmakers


Improve pay & conditions
Change consumer behaviour
Educate workers

Flip the script
Workers take the mic
Find the unions
Join with others
Encourage feminist solidarities
Find a character
Spend some time
Show suffering kids
Juxtapose extremes
Make it incomplete
Make Music
Encourage curiosity
Encourage detective work
Make it funny

These people are inspiring
I’m humming that music
I laughed my ass off
I’m so angry
This is so sad
I just cried
This is disgusting
Creeperific
I get what it’s like
I gotta do something

Image credits

Conversation (https://thenounproject.com/icon/conversation-6769395/) by kliwir art from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)




It’s funny how you can be so angry at someone who is just doing their job.”

IN BRIEF

More about this page.

We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?

You want to make a trade justice documentary???

Well, from what I’ve learnt in a Trade Justice module this year, your goal should be achieving two key outcomes: A) improve workers’ pay and conditions in the Global South, and B) change consumer behaviour in the Global North. These objectives are intertwined and can be approached through targeted filmmaking strategies.

First: check out Duncombe’s (2023) book . It’s all about theories of change and will give you the tools you need to make your documentary as impactful as possible. There are two main strategies you can use to achieve both A and B:

For A – use a materialist theory of change-this means seizing the “means of production” (Duncombe, 2023, p. 265) – here you could focus on the workers’ control over their own labour in the Global South.

For B – go with an activist theory of change-targeting emotions to “stir up the masses” (Duncombe, 2023, p. 265).

I’ll walk you through how various techniques can be used to empower workers in the Global South and spark emotional engagement in the Global North, to drive social change in Trade Justice.

Stage 1: make it relevant

Before diving into audience specifics, think about how you can ensure its relevance to the social context. This worked for Ilha das Flores, cuz it appeared during Brazil’s “democratization period” (Trujillo in Pavalow, 2025, np). The filmmaker, Furtado, could capture social issues when the audience was receptive to them, so that he could make a doc about social injustices.

Screenshot from Ilha das Flores.

But relevance alone won’t make your documentary effective. For instance, if you wanted to make a doc about Global South trade injustices, a topic like Trump and his tariffs threatening global supply chains might have to be watered down to comply with regulations for mainstream TV. Ilha das Flores works cuz it breaks from convention. weird!!! Furtado made it funny. The line in the screenshot above is both hilarious (I laughed my ass off) and random. Furtado can make a serious point about capitalist exploitation while entertaining; “funny at first, demolishing in the end” (Trufó in Pavalow, 2025, np).

This is SO effective cuz humour sparks public discussion better than “serious or emotional appeals” (Morreall in Cameron, 2015, p. 278). Conversations about their own complicity in global capitalist systems. Now we’re talking. If you want your documentary to be impactful AND be picked up by mainstream TV, make it current and make it funny to highlight the absurdities in supply chains.

Stage 2: choose your audience

Screenshot from the draft Handbook.

Now, decide who to engage, and how. If your intention is to educate workers and improve their pay and conditions in the Global South, centre the documentary on them. If workers see others fighting for their rights, they’re empowered to act.

Take UDITA, for example. The filmmakers flip the script and workers take the mic. Women, garment workers, and trade union activists are at the “centre of [the] film” (Anon in Barker et al., 2025, np), encouraging feminist solidarities.

As Duncombe (2023) speaks about in his Materialist Theory of Change, it is the material realities of workers’ lives that spur them into action. UDITA brings this theory to life; we see workers empower themselves – not just learning but fighting against “unsafe conditions” (Crawford in Barker et al 2025, np). The protagonist explains that five years ago the wage was $9/month; now it’s $68/month through campaigns. Your audience may resonate with unfairness and want to transform their own realities.

If you wanted to document the Bangladeshi protests over Trump’s tariffs, show what’s already happening to be effective for your intended audience. Show how material conditions, like uncertainty, are catalysts for organising. Find the unions, join with others that are already doing the same. Capture the “grassroots resistance” (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np). YOU can help to apply pressure by documenting the ongoing struggle and building solidarity with these efforts.

In Bangladesh, document unions like the “National Garment Workers Federation” pushing for better conditions (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np). Support the “Trade Justice Movement” of the Global South (Bannister and Bergan, 2023, p. 3). By showing workers that their fight can lead to change, they’ll think, “these people are inspiring”!! Audiences become empowered. The viewer could join a union themselves by seeing how collective bargaining can transform their realities.

Screenshot of UDITA’s viewing data from YouTube.

BUT if your intention is to educate workers, are you sure they’ll even see the documentary? UDITA is on YouTube-accessible to anyone with a smartphone, which is lots of people nowadays. BUT 
 UDITA has low views. As Nora put it, “I’m so angry!!… UDITA needs more views!” (Nora in Barker et al., 2025, np). While it’s easy to make a doc accessible, getting the right people to watch it is a different challenge.

Primark – on the rack reached “4.2 million viewers” (Dowell in Adley et al., 2025, np). Good for awareness, BUT if your goal is to educate workers, think about “breadth” vs. “depth” (Duncombe, 2024, p. 71). Reaching millions is fine, but if they’re not the right people, impact is limited. Which are YOU aiming for?

Stage 3: engage the right emotions

If you choose to target a Global North audience, you need to think about how to engage them. You need to spark the right emotions- but avoid pity or sadness. From my Global North perspective, those emotions are passive and don’t drive real engagement.

Films like Girl Model and Primark – on the rack encourage empathy by:

Find a character -> spend some time -> showing suffering kids

But does including children evoke the right emotions for activism (Brown and Pickerell, 2009)? Girl Model [left] shows “minors” in the exploitative modelling industry (Edelson in Hambly et al., 2025) …

Screenshot of 13 year old Siberian model Nadya Vall, the central character in Girl Model

while Primark – on the rack shows children working on garments (BBC Trust in Adley et al., 2025, np).

Screenshot of two unnamed children in India sewing sequins onto tops in Primark – on the rack.

It’s hard not to feel something when you see children suffering, to empathise with their vulnerability, understand the world from their perspective (Krzanic, 2007). I was once young. The close-up shots help us to read their emotions too.

But empathy fades fast cuz the distance between myself, an able-bodied, privileged person-and these kids is huge!! I don’t get what it’s like. I’m feeling “for them” (Keen in NĂ„ls, 2018, p. 145) not with them. Sympathy. Chouliaraki (2010) says victim-oriented campaigns turn the sufferer into an object we contemplate from afar. Us vs. Them. You can’t just show a victim, Dan, cuz look at the implications this has on Girl Model’s followthethings.com page: @DisturbedPixie, how is giving “Nadia a hug” (in Hambly et al., 2025, np) going to help in the grand scheme of activism? AWWWWWW. This is so sad. But sympathy can’t motivate action. Was I moved? Yes. Empowered? No. I just cried. I gotta do something. But what đŸ€” ?

You HAVE to move emotions from “affective to ĂŠffective” (Duncombe, 2024, p. 46) – turning empathy into action. Otherwise, the film risks being an emotional spectacle without real impact.

So, Dan, evoke deep, “high-certainty” emotions, like anger and disgust (Kemp, 2025, p. 46), choose to shock and disrupt (Duncombe, 2024). How? Start by finding the right character. Shift your gaze from the teenage models to Ashley Arbaugh, the ex-model-turned-scout in Girl Model. She hides her camera to take non-consensual photos of girls. This is disgustingcreeperific.

Screenshot of a collection of photos taken by model scout Ashley Arbaugh in Girl Model.

Disgust is “visceral” (RyynĂ€nen et al., 2023, p. 3) – something you feel. Going beyond ‘AWWWW’ for these girls, it unsettles you. Just the thought of Ashley still makes me squirm đŸ€ą. That’s how you make a documentary that matters. I feel it. It’s memorable. For me, now I know. Disgust makes me rethink my consumer habits and drives me to support ethical brands. Feeling disgust at exploitative practices means I can no longer ignore my complicity. I shop differently now. Want to apply this approach? Look for an exploitative figure in the Bangladeshi unions. Spend time with them. If you capture something that sparks disgust, it’ll engage your audience. It worked in Girl Model – give it a try!

Stage 4: make it memorable

Screenshots from the Handbook.

Another way to make it stick is to make it memorable. You could make music. I didn’t think ‘humming that music’ would be a response to Mangetout, which explores the journey of mangetout from Zimbabwe to a dinner party in London. But here I am months later, still remembering every word from the kids’ performance for Tesco’s inspectors đŸŽ¶ “Down the valley, up the mountain / Tesco’s our dear friend!” đŸŽ¶ (Holt in Cook et al., 2025, np).

The tune didn’t “stop in silence” (Williamson & Jilka, 2014, p. 653). It followed me home, reciting it at Easter. Cut from the performance…

Screenshots from Mangetout where Zimbabwean children sing to visiting Tesco buyer Mark Dady (in red).


to Grannie, “the farm’s ‘caterpillar examiner’ explaining how she tried to kill herself” đŸ˜± (O’Malley in Cook at al., 2025, np):

Screenshot from Mangetout of interview footage with caterpillar examiner Grannie.

Not so sweet anymore, is it, @Tongue? Me singing happily to myself at home only reminds me more of the exploitation-the unease lingers as the song is lodged. I’m thinking about my role as a consumer. Clever


Another tactic to make ur doc memorable is juxtaposing extremes of people. This works because viewers must work hard to understand why you chose these contrasts, and that effort makes the message stick. In Mangetout, produce buyer Mark Dady, “the great man from Tesco” (Holt in Cook et al., 2025, np), struts in, while the farmers he “bullied” (Aaronovitch in Cook et al., 2025, np) praise him. Girl Model too uses a glaring contrast between Nadya and Ashley, placed on “opposite ends of the business” (Smith in Hambly et al., 2025, np). One is a vulnerable girl exploited for profit, the other a scout capitalising on that vulnerability. It’s funny how you can be so angry at someone who is just doing their job. But the way their lives fit together is atrocious to the audience đŸ˜€. This tactic can evoke anger – I spoke about strong emotions earlier. The hope is that these spark action (Kemp, 2025).

You can also make it memorable by doing something different. You can make it incomplete / encourage curiosity. As Cook (2015) argues, the excitement of discovering things for ourselves fuels curiosity and critical questions. An interatcive documentary called The ginger trail by Bharath Ananthanarayana, did this. Ananthanarayana (in Ananthanarayana, 2025, np) wanted to encourage detective work đŸ•”ïžâ€â™€ïž. Like he had invented a game – Cluedo meets documentary. Two-minute clips where my classmates and I choose the sequence. Boje (in Connor and Phelan, 2013) developed an antenarrative approach, which Ananthanarayana uses. Through jumbled clips which unsettle “ordered narratives” (Connor and Phelan, 2013, p. 150), Ananthanarayana documents the many stories circulating within the narrative. My first clip was “Labouring the Field” (Ananthanarayana, 2025). One shot of digging đŸȘ, the only sound being the rhythmic thwack of labour.

Screenshot from the ‘Labouring in the field’ sequence in The ginger trail.

Then, I chose a sequence called “How It Began”. Wait-shouldn’t this have come first? Nope. Ananthanarayana hands the audience choice of how the story unfolds. That’s influential: just like how I have the power to create the story of documentary, I have the power to choose how I source commodities in my life. Dan, if you want people like me to feel that urgency of ‘I gotta do something’, you need to make them actively involved in the process – like Bharath did. Make them feel they have a part to play in changing the system.

By engaging the right emotions, you can create real impact. For me, I now know about the exploitation behind commodities like mangetout and girl models – that I had no clue about before. No longer ignorant. The deeper emotions inspired me to talk. Even this small step leads to change. Now we’re talking đŸ—Łïž 💬. This is the impact you should aim for, Dan, cuz by sharing these films, the conversation passes through the “social realm” (Heim, 2003, p. 187), raising awareness and demystifying exploitation. Even by talking/singing to my dad about Mangetout, I’ve pushed the conversation outside “traditional art and activism worlds” (Duncombe, 2024, p. 74).

So, see what you can achieve for workers in the Global South and audience members in the Global North audience by thinking about all these things. Let me know what approach you decide to take!


+16 sources

Brown, G. & Pickerell, J. (2009) Space for emotion in the spaces of activism. Emotion, Space & Society, 2, 24–35.

Williamson, V. & Jilka, S. (2014) Experiencing earworms: an interview study of involuntary musical imagery. Psychology of Music, 42(5), 653-670

SECTION: advice

Written by Katie Smart, edited by Ian Cook (first published June 2025)

Posted on

Handbook: example page




Change government behaviour
Change corporate behaviour

Target the right brand
Hold ’em accountable
Put your bodies in the way
Embody exploitation
Make the hidden visible

There is no alternative
Who’s responsible?

Image credit

followthethings.com


Tackle the shackles

How to read this page

We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.


DEPARTMENT: Security

By Ian Cook (June 2025)

Posted on

Handbook: example page




Cross cultures
Show capitalist evils

Make the hidden visible
Follow the thing
Show the violence
Add mood music

LOL capitalism
They aren’t experts
It’s so badly made
That’s racist
I’m humming that music

Image credit

followthethings.com


Life of a bullet

How to read this page

We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.


Teleshopping AK-47

FOLLOWTHETHINGS.COM PAGE

DEPARTMENT: Security

By Ian Cook (June 2025)

Posted on

Handbook: example page




Reach new audiences
Show capitalist evils

Make a website
Choose an audience
Create a character
Bring managers into view
Make the familiar strange
Embody exploitation
Juxtapose extremes
Lie to tell the truth
Include the digital
Make it funny

My Hero!
I laughed my ass off

Image credit

Assorted Fashion Industry Textiles – Assortment of beige tone colored pants (https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/assortment-beige-tone-colored-pants_66105704.htm#fromView=search&page=2&position=46&uuid=4f93b6cd-f230-48f0-bce8-48ec11bbaecd) by freepic (freepic) Modified August 2024


Employee Visualisation Appendage

How to read this page

We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.


FOOTNOTE

1 GATT was the predecessor to the WTO.

DEPARTMENT: Fashion

By Ian Cook (June 2025)