{"id":2221,"date":"2020-11-19T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T21:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/?p=2221"},"modified":"2021-07-01T19:41:56","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T07:41:56","slug":"american-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/archives\/2221","title":{"rendered":"American Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.substack.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F944746b9-680f-48a6-a154-7d531aeed426_960x1440.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.substack.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F944746b9-680f-48a6-a154-7d531aeed426_960x1440.jpeg\" alt=\"American Factory' review: Obamas deliver nuanced Netflix doc - SupChina\" style=\"width: 400px;\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>American Factory<\/em>, which is on Netflix, and which Dad tells me was funded by the Obamas, is very much worth watching. It\u2019s the story of the Chinese resuscitation of a windshield factory in Dayton, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film is beautiful to look at, and offers many insights into what life might feel like for workers in the superpowers. Driving the film are the obvious clashes of culture and interests, plus a fight about whether to unionise (the Workers\u2019 Paradise has strong feelings about unions not controlled by the CCCP). You can imagine how Trump might have some appeal in this world \u2014&nbsp;\u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 might be heard as \u2018put the Americans back in charge of our factory\u2019 or \u2018put our wages back up to $29\/hour\u2019 (rather than the US$14\/hour starter rate under the new management). Amazing to me is the degree of access the filmmakers got&nbsp;\u2014 as well as the many interviews with people at all levels of the plant, you get to listen in (well, read the translation) when the Chinese boss explains to the Chinese portion of the staff how to deal with American workers who\u2019ve been pampered since birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michele Obama <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/2019\/08\/president-obama-michelle-american-factory-netflix-video-1202167592\/\">made<\/a> the ridiculous comment that the film \u2018doesn\u2019t come in with a perspective; it\u2019s not an editorial\u2019 (and can you believe they call their production company \u2018Higher Ground\u2019?); much more illuminating is an <a href=\"https:\/\/cmsimpact.org\/resource\/pull-focus-julia-reichert-steve-bognar\/\">interview<\/a> with the filmmakers, Julia Reichert &amp; Steve Bognar, by the Centre for Media and Social Impact, which I gather was published closer to the time of a previous film of theirs about the earlier closure of the same factory, when it was owned by General Motors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"American Factory | Official Trailer | Netflix\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m36QeKOJ2Fc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Factory, which is on Netflix, and which Dad tells me was funded by the Obamas, is very much worth watching. It\u2019s the story of the Chinese resuscitation of a windshield factory in Dayton, Ohio. The film is beautiful to look at, and offers many insights into what life might feel like for workers in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2224,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions\/2224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}