The Vegetarian Cinophile
By Emanuel Goldman
Note: With the widespread availability of videocassette players, video rental stores, and multiple cable TV channels, it is now possible to access an enormous variety of films, and the public is no longer dependent solely on the vicissitudes of what the local movie houses or network TV stations choose to program. This column considers selected general-release films, both past and present, which the author believes hold particular interest to viewers with a vegetarian perspective.
AMERICAN DREAM (1989) Directed and co-produced by Barbara Kopple. Won Academy Award for Best Documentary. Rated PG-13 (contains foul language) (100 min).
At dawn, pigs are herded into a slaughterhouse. Stunned into unconsciousness by electric prods, they are cut open by butchers wielding buzzsaws in an assembly line process. Further down the line, cuts of meat are packaged and wrapped. Then the title, in red, white and blue, fills the screen: "American Dream." It is an ironic title, since the focus of the film is on how that "dream" is elusive for working people exploited by ruthless company management. For a viewer with a vegetarian perspective, it is more like "American Nightmare," as we comprehend, over the course of the film, the enormity of the economic forces involved, and their stake (pun intended) in maintaining widespread consumption of meat.
The film traces a bitter labor dispute between the Hormel Meat Packing Company and local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Austin, Minnesota (population 22,000). A display of products made by the company is slowly panned by the camera: Chili, Potted Meat, Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Spam, Canned Ham, Roast Beef Hash, Big Franks, Turkey Breast, Pepperoni, and so on. The film informs us that in 1984, the company declared profits of $29.5 million. In the same year, the company, claiming the need to remain competitive, announced plans to cut wages of some 1,400 workers in their Austin plant from $10.69 to $8.25 per hour upon expiration of the then current contract in 1986. Benefits were also slated for a 30% cut.
The local union began a campaign to resist the proposed wage cuts, and called in a labor consultant, Ray Rogers from New York City, President of "Corporate Campaign, Inc." In a richly ironic moment, the film recounts the initial contact between Rogers and the president of the local union. Rogers is quoted as having said "he didn't know anything about meat packing because he was a vegetarian." The subject never comes up again, as Rogers goes all out in support of the union; the controversy which develops about his role is only that he is accused of being an outsider. Rogers' strategy involves attempting to influence the principal stockholders in order to exert pressure on management. For example, in a mailing to stockholders, the heading reads: "Who is Behind Hormel's Cold Cuts?" referring to the planned wage slashes. This is followed by shots of the assembly line, with pigs being decapitated on a conveyer belt.
The countdown continues to the end of the contract period with a lot of noise but little movement on either side, and inevitably, the union goes out on strike. Internal union politics begin to preoccupy the filmmaker, as the International Union, representing 100,000 meatpackers from 95 companies, doesn't wholeheartedly support the actions of the local. Management attempts to break the strike, hiring scabs and threatening their workers with permanent loss of their jobs. Police, and then the National Guard, are called in to preserve order (effectively breaking the picket line), and the solidarity of the strikers begins to crumble. Several wrenching personal stories of strikers and their families are recounted. After some 6 months, the company finishes rehiring for the plant, and the International Union steps in and settles the contract without provision for rehiring all the striking workers (they are placed on a waiting list, but fewer than 20% had been rehired at the time the film was made). Thus, it turns out to be a near-total rout for labor.
The slaughter of food animals is a constant, though understated, metaphor for the human rela-tions which are depicted. There are frequent interspersed scenes of butchery and the packing process, both in shots by the filmmaker and in excerpts from older promotional films made by the com-pany. Predatory animals are also invoked metaphorically: a labor leader quotes fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey, "I'd rather live 50 years like a tiger than 100 years like a chicken," and a voice-over while showing the butchery intones, "They become barracudas just like everyone else." It is the image of man as predator, even against fellow men, and it is not pretty.
This image, combined with the economic reality of meat production, are sobering perceptions. The Austin facility is a $100 million plant. The size of the company and the numbers of workers involved are scary and impressive, and this is just one company of many! "American Dream" is a sad film, especially for a vegetarian. It is certainly not a film to see just before dinner. We can only hope that the shedding of light on the process by a film such as this will ultimately have a beneficial effect in transforming people's diets. For ultimately, the answer to the economics is also economic: if no one wants meat, meat won't be made.
© 1998 by Emanuel Goldman
Emanuel Goldman, a vegetarian since 1964, was a film critic from 1968-1980 for several publications, including The Boston Phoenix and The Boston Review of the Arts.
