ENGLISH 23
(A.K.A. CLIMATE CRISIS 101)
Deep Dive
The True Cost
Every single employee deserves a livable wage, trade union rights, pension, safe working conditions, and healthcare. However, the numerous disasters, including the collapse of Rana Plaza and factory fires, show how little greedy companies care. The less money these companies spend on infrastructure and employee benefits, the more profit is made for a small group of people at the top. My mother, who immigrated to the U.S. two decades ago, has experience working in garment factories in both China and San Diego; she talked about the poor living conditions, not making enough to eat, the long hours, and the strict management. The treatment of garment workers makes me awfully angry; the poorest people in the world who face innumerable struggles and can’t afford the necessities in life (shelter, food, childcare, healthcare, etc) support the selfish lifestyles for the rest of the world. And what makes it even worse is that most people don’t know where their clothes come from. The problem with American culture is that people have insatiable desires for more and the need to meet unrealistically high standards. Instead of buying quality fair trade clothing for a higher cost and that will last longer, Americans go towards purchasing cheap clothing that is made to be worn a few times and disposed of. The cheap clothes come from mothers who can’t afford to care for their children and cotton farmers who face the health consequences from pesticides. For Americans who choose to spend their disposable income on clothing, how can we encourage them to choose more sustainable options and to defy society’s standards on fashion? How can we change culture fast enough to save the lives of garment workers and to save the earth from further damage?
While watching “The True Cost” it made me more suddenly wary of the impact just one person can really have on climate change. I think we all to an extent think that we are just one person and we can’t we contributing so largely to such a widespread issue. Though the reality is that we are individually damaging the climate. Watching this fiilm, I knew about the impact I make on the environment with the everyday choices i make, but seeing it was a whole different story. My family is from India and I have visited there often so I have seen these horrific labor circumstances first hand making them far more impactful to me. India has a large population of over exerted laborers though most of what they make is for export purposes. I have experienced the low pay of this market because when I visit it becomes very evident of how much cheaper things are to buy than they are in the U.S. There $1 is equal to roughly around 72 rupees and a meal there costs maybe 20 rupees on average. This means that these people are working far harder to make substantially less. I know that this is not the only labor market to which this same effect is seen though it has a personal effect on me which causes me to make far more conscious choices. I thought this documentary was beneficial for the same reason. Though it may not give personal reasons, it does show the intensity of damage we do and how it impacts not only the climate but also several other people around the globe because of something we consider so casual like fashion choices.
Whenever I’m learning about this class I always relate it to my personal experiences. For “The True Cost,” it really wasn’t hard. I can remember going to stores like H&M and Forever 21 ever since middle school: and like it says in the title, I really didn’t know the “true cost.” Though I knew people working in sweatshops were getting extremely low wages and working conditions were more difficult than here in America, this film’s depiction of factory-life in places like Cambodia and Indonesia truly shocked me. I had no idea that workers would get beaten by staff members, were treated so cruelly by police during riots, and had such unsafe, long work hours.
Many of the images shown in the film The True Cost will be engrained in my mind for many many years to come, if not forever. From images of wounded protesters in Cambodia, contaminated river in India, baby’s sleeping next to their loved ones in the sweatshops, to the mountains of trash idling waiting for hundreds of years to filling decompose – these are just a few. The True Cost uses shocking images, devastating personal testimonies, pleas for change, fair wage, and safe working conditions to convey the severity of the fast fashion has on people and our planet. Ken asks us in the film recap lecture if we should be experimenting with new ways of conveying these harsh realities and although I don’t see why not, I also find this shock value method effective (at least for myself). Though not everyone can digest sensitive and shocking information the same way, so I do believe other methods of spreading awareness could also be effective.
This week, watching the 30 minute episode of, “The Ugly Truth of Fast Fashion,” was very refreshing. Its humorous approach delivered important information in a friendly format that was easy to receive, and yet all of the information was a giant slap in the face of just how horrible fast fashion really is. Even though Hasan would joke about the actual ridiculousness of a society that has, “52 fashion seasons per year,” he didn’t take any of the seriousness away from the issue. In fact, just when viewers started to think that maybe the problems weren’t as bad as they seemed, he brought down some very undeniable statistics that really made the audience think. As a person who has trouble getting people to care about some of the things that I think are most important, it was almost revolutionary for me to watching this comedian get just about anyone to stop and pay attention to such an important issue like fast fashion. I do believe that more avenues besides documentaries, podcasts, and heartfelt video speeches should be explored in spreading awareness of these issues, especially ones that are entertaining. This way, an entirely new group of people could be exposed to problems and solutions they may never have seen before. Not because they don’t care, but simply because they’re not the kind of person to listen or watch a lot of informational stuff on a topic they don’t really know about. Knowledge alone may not exactly be power, but it’s definitely a start.
In Professor Hiltner’s introduction video he tells the story of a friend’s child watching TV and catching a commercial for makeup geared toward young girls — a prime example of the grooming process these companies put us through. It occurred to me that this one makeup company had no way of being certain that child would grow up and pick their company specifically (besides maybe subconsciously recognizing the name if their ads worked superbly well). Rather they were targeting children so as to ensure that their pool of possible customers whould not be depleted in the coming decades. They naturally risk their competitors gaining new customers, but it doesn’t matter. Consumption is the goal and if they get one more little girl to partake they at least have a shot to convince her to buy from them later on. Something like makeup I think is also incredibly (and horrifically) interesting to study as a good to be consumed, as it isn’t just marketed to women and girls as something they should want or as something that will be somehow useful to them, but rather that it is a necessary part of our identities. We’re baited as young girls with the beautiful idea of womanhood and how makeup will bring us there even sooner, until it becomes a part of our identity and without it we are meant to feel ugly, unfinished, and less feminine. These are positively psychotic manipulation techniques that fundamentally change who we are as people, all so that a small group of corporate leaders will make a fat paycheck.
I learned about the horrific factory worker conditions in my world history class as well. There was an incident the professor mentioned that was similar to the Rana Plaza collapse that happened during the industrial revolution. In the spring of 1911, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The company was one of the largest garment factories on the east side of Manhattan. There were 146 Jewish and Italian young women working at the time that were trapped inside on the 9th floor of the factory. All 146 of those women burned to death, asphyxiated or jumped to their deaths. The sad truth is that the fashion industry hasn’t really changed since the industrial revolution. There have been so many deaths that have occurred inside of these factories and nothing happens to correct that. The fast fashion industry still exists and people are still dying because of the exploitation of this industry. It’s inhumane, unjust and destroys the planet.
“The True Cost” really made me rethink the harms of the fashion industry. Living in South Korea, fashion is a great influence among all people; determining a critical view of wealth, appearance, and general well-being. People in Korea take fashion seriously and regularly change their clothes according to trend; accurately portraying “fast fashion.” The documentary made me realize that the industry is harming so many people as it explores the life of low-wage workers in developing countries to its after-effects such as river and soil pollution, pesticide contamination, disease and death. The multiple interviews that are shown show the pain of people that results from wealthy people’s consumerism and the overall destruction of the environment that we are bringing upon ourselves. I believe that this documentary holds an important message that Koreans must understand before taking too much value of clothing.
Watching the movie the “True Cost” was honestly a weird experience. The fast fashion industry is one of those aspects of life that everyone subconsciously knows is horrible and devastating but no one wants to address it or recognize. One thing that stood out to me was when Ken said that we need to start rethinking the ‘American Dream’ and I totally agree. I see just as a small proportion of the world holds majority of the wealth, so does influence and trend setting. While it is true that many people have different ways to express themselves, there are arguable a handful of influential people who masses of the population follow and want to be. If we started having these massively influential people adopt more sustainable lifestyles that don’t seem to place as much value on material things, the masses might follow. I do not know exactly how this would work because it seems engraved in our American minds that wealth= objects and objects= status. I just wish there was a way to gain as much popularity as a Hollywood A-list star and be known as sustainable. It is true that if there were to be tons of stars preaching minimalism or simply living more plaining, there would be whole internet groups dedicated to pointing out their privilege and bashing their choices. That might be true but there must be a way to make less feel like more to the average American.
I have found in my research about fast fashion that the first thing a person should do to change their habits is to buy less. While this seems easy, this movie shows it is not. The marketing tactics of these fashion companies are used to convince people that they need to keep buying buying buying. They discuss in the movie that there are now 52 seasons of fashion, one for every week. Stores are constantly being flooded with new clothes that fit the new trend. You could go into H&M today and tomorrow it would look like an entirely new store. So buying less is really hard when the media tells you to buy more. Is there a way we can convince people to stop giving in to these schemes? It seems unlikely. And if they do buy less, how can people be convinced to buy from sustainable alternatives when they are so much more expensive? We have been conditioned to believe that a $2 shirt is a bargain, but it is not. Someone made that shirt, and we saw the conditions they are in. Clothes are expensive to make when they are made right. I hope that eventually the horrors of fast fashion will become something we can no longer ignore. I hope we can find a sustainable and affordable way to clothe people without someone having to work in these awful conditions.
I am someone who loves the freedom of expression clothing allows us to showcase, I also acknowledge and understand the rate at which we are consuming clothing and buying into this corrupt system is detrimental to our planet and comes with serious human rights violations. Thoreau believed that the industry is to blame for this corruption and consumerism. I believe he is right in some regard but I also believe that the fault also falls into our laps. As mentioned in the film, the apparel industry account for 3 trillion dollars, it provides jobs, and the consumption of these materials is a major fuel for our economy. But I find myself, along with many other of the people in the film, asking – at what cost? People in undeveloped countries shouldn’t be dying and not able to provide for their families because America demands a $10 tee-shirt. The injustice doesn’t just affect those in lands far away, it is also plaguing people right here in America (e.g., the cotton farms spraying pesticides). The film exposed Monsanto’s contribution to the environmental and health crises in the US. I am currently learning about this wrecked companies actions through my Corporate Social Responsibly course I am taking right now so I enjoyed being able to apply the knowledge I have acquired from that class and apply it to what we are learning here in ENG23. It’s despicable that this company can own the GMO seeds, the pesticides, and the MEDICINE used to treat the affects of the first two. This is a crime on humanity and the environment. How is it that a company can knowingly put humans in danger with their products and then hold the key to “fix” the health problems that come as an affect?? CORRUPTION, INJUSTICE, and AMORAL. The statistic that shocked me the most in relation to Monsanto is that there have been over 250,000 farmer suicides in the last 16 years; one farmer every 30 minutes. The system is broken. Americans know that, the corporations know that, the government knows that, the world knows that. But it only does because we have not stood up to these destructive industries and said “no more”. Garment workers in Cambodia are shot by riot police when they demand a monthly wage of $130 and safe working conditions and we sit here in America thinking about what material items we will score on Black Friday? We are letting down our future generations in America as well as the rest of the world. We are given the luxury of free speech in America, it’s about time we used that for more than just dragging Hollywood celebrities. Thoreau is right, the industry does cultivate humans into consumers, but we are just as bad as them if we don’t do anything about it.
Fast fashion also embodies the dangers of globalization, as it shows that corporations can simply pick up and move to another country once one starts to demand rights and safety for its workers. I think what’s even more horrifying is the amount of violence that takes place within the state against the workers once they do begin organizing for livable wages and working conditions. The greed of these corporations is so great that a simple request, like being paid $160 US MONTHLY is met with violent crackdowns from the state and factory owners. I felt such sorrow listening to the workers recount their experiences of being violently attacked by factory owners and workers. It’s clear that the greed from the top, which in this case is giant international fashion corporations, trickles down all the way to the factories in which the products are produced. I just find the actions so reprehensible, especially given the insane amount of wealth that is being generated from the fashion industry. No single person could reasonably use all the wealth being generated, so why not give it to the people who are putting their literal blood, sweat, and tears into making these profits for them?