I saw the movie King Corn last night at Harvard. It was ok. The best part I thought was when they interviewed Earl Butz, a Secretary of Agriculture in the 1970s that instigated a major food production policy shift.
Earl said that his change in policy led to a decrease in the amount of money people spent on food (from ~40% to 15-20%) which led to the economic prosperity of today. (eg more disposable income, more consumption, expanded economy).
Clever. Though after reading his wikipedia entry, apparently he wasn’t so clever in other respects. Definitely didn’t mention that in the movie.
I doubt that Butz’s statement about his policy change was included to showcase his cleverness; Butz talks about this because it’s an easy sell. This particular scene puts Butz’s ‘desire to help people’ side to side with his unwillingness to talk about some of the mistakes of his policies. (Though I think the filmmakers’ point about not wanting to be Michael Moore is heard loud and clear in this scene.)
Post new comment