Bring managers into view – Page 3

“China Blue“
A documentary film directed by Micha X. Peled for Teddy Bear Films.
Trailer embedded above. Search online for streaming options here.

The first film in Micha X. Peled’s ‘Globalisation Trilogy’ is a critique of cut-price retailer Wal-Mart. For the second, Peled finds out how the goods that it sells can be so cheap. He travels to China, to a jeans factory, trying to avoid the authorities in order to make his film. The factory owner is proud, but the working conditions are harsh, and its clients are demanding. Corporate executives sourcing clothes from the factory haggle the price down. They couldn’t compete if they paid living wages. Along with factory manager Mr Lam, a charming , fun-loving 16 year old called Jasmine is the film’s main character. She trims threads, and takes pebbles out of pockets – for up to 20 hours a day. She lives in a cramped dormitory and speculates with her friends about the lives of the ‘fat and tall’ people that wear these jeans overseas. She writes a letter and places it in a pocket for a shopper to find and read. She meets someone whose jeans she has helped to make. She dreams of being a martial arts princess. She wants to work here but is worn down by the endless, tiring work. The film makes some viewers feel implicated. Only a tiny increase in the cost of those jeans could give Jasmine and her friends a living wage. But nobody in China can see this. Peled’s film was banned there.

Page reference: Jess Mayers, Alex Horgan, Sam Spicer, Mike Rastall, Rob Donald and Andi Frost (2012) China Blue. followthethings.com/china-blue.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 64 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024March 19, 2025 by Ian Cook

Mardi Gras: Made In China

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Fashion | Gifts & Seasonal

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

JUXTAPOSE EXTREMES

HUMANISE WORKERS

HUMANISE THINGS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE

SHOW IT BACK

“Mardi Gras: Made In China“
A documentary film directed by David Redmon for Carnivalesque Films.
First five minutes embedded above. Search online for streaming availability here.

During the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, USA, a tradition has emerged in which women who bear flesh have strings of plastic beads thrown at them to wear. Filmmaker David Redmon films this revelry and travels to Fuzhou, China to meet the ‘easy to control’ women who make those beads. He films their high speed, low wage, work and returns to New Orleans to show this footage to drunken revellers. He’d done the same thing in Fuzhou, showing the factory workers how the beads they made were ‘consumed’. The film connects women in China making plastic beads for women in the USA to wear, but under very specific, throwaway circumstances. So what were their reactions to seeing these hidden relationships? How did they make sense of this? Or push it to one side? Or find it funny? What happens when labour exploitation meets carnival excess? Where did these beads go afterwards? Who cleaned them up as trash? Why were they sent to US military personnel in Iraq in care packages? And did those factory workers really tell the director that their jobs were fun and well paid? Who can you trust to translate what people tell you? All of these dramas generated heated debate. Not least about trade justice activism like this being a ‘buzzkill’. But what’s the way forward? The film doesn’t suggest one.

Page reference: Grace Chu, Stephanie Hong & Jasmine Lee (2014) Mardi Gras: Made In China. followthethings.com/mardi-gras-made-in-china.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 53 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024June 23, 2025 by Ian Cook

Employee Visualisation Appendage

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Fashion

“Employee Visualisation Appendage“
A conference talk prank by The Yes Men at a ‘Textiles of The Future’ conference in Tampere, Finland – filmed & featured in ‘The Yes Men’ movie.

Cultural activists and ‘identity correctors’ The Yes Men set up a fake World Trade Organisation (WTO) website and offer a man called Hank Hardy Unruh to speak at conferences on its behalf. The organisers of a ‘Textiles of the Future’ conference in Finland believe the website is genuine and invite him to give a talk. In the conference hall, the audience watch his assistant ripping off his business suit to reveal a gold lamé telematic suit underneath from which he inflates a huge phallus. This ’employee visualisation appendage’, they say, will allow future managers to give electric shocks to sweatshop workers when their productivity levels dip. To the Yes Men, this gold lamé performance exaggerates to ridiculous proportions the inhumanity of the WTO’s neo-liberal ideology and its dehumanisation of supply chain workers. It’s outrageous and kind of obscene (both the ideology and their performance). Movie audiences find it hilarious. But why is there such a muted reaction in the hall? And what impacts (if any) might these reactions have on the lives of workers in textile supply chains? This compilation page is arranged a little differently than others on our website because this prank had two audiences: the conference delegates and the movie audiences. We find this example fascinating. It’s fair to say that it’s memorable. But where – and upon whom – did it make an impact?

Page reference: Tom Best, Tom Gibson, Beth Massey, Chloe Rees, Kate Ross & Jemma Sherman (2019) Employee Visualisation Appendage. followthethings.com/employee-visualisation-appendage.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.