The Mardis Gras: Made In China Film

     This film surprised me. I never knew that that happened to children in those days. Slavery wasn't just the Negroes and Indians. It made me think how lucky I am to live in the day in age that I do, even though there are still children treated like this. I just was lucky and grew up in a good

I think it accurately portrayed the hardships families went through during the Great Depression. At first, everything was fine and James J. Braddock was a successful boxer with a good amount of money. Then, the Great Depression hits and Braddock struggles to support his family. He continues to box, but it is difficult for him to support his family off what little he makes. He tries to find other jobs, but struggles because he broke his hand in a boxing match, making manual labor especially painful for him. I thought this part of the movie was extremely sad. Braddock was trying so hard to support his family, but he could barely manage. He continued to box even though he was not healthy, as he had a broken hand and was extremely malnourished. His wife was always stressed and the Depression was a huge strain of their marriage. Their kids were young and didn’t really understand what was going on, but they still suffered from starvation and illness. I really liked the end of the movie when Braddock receives a large sum of money after winning a huge boxing match. He was able to provide for his family once again. I think this really shows that hard work eventually pays

Although the world climate around exploitation has altered in the last few years, mostly moving away from the exploited industrial countries such as China, it is still important to look at what was happening in China so that it can be understood in connection with today. The documentary by Robert Redmon, Mardi Gras: Made in China focuses on the exploited Chinese factory workers crafting various beads for the Americans to throw at each other for sexual gratification. The documentary does a good job jumping back and forth between the factory workers and the celebrators of Mardis Gras, creating an interesting parallel, implicating the absolute uselessness in the beads for such a large cost. Marx's theories of exploitation through Capitalism can be tied too well to the Chinese-Mardi Gras beads exploitation, as the Chinese workers were put through an extreme form of Capitalist exploitation that even Marx may never have expected.

To start off I felt this was a good movie overall. One scene I felt that had stood out was when the black man was showed the pattern on the cloth showing that there was a house he can escape to with his daughter. This scene kind of gave us a hint that many people probably knew about the house but was too scared to escape in fear of being caught. I felt that the black man was very determined to get his daughter away safely no matter what so much that he went in to unknown water just to hide from the slave masters. I was a little confused at the begging because I thought slave work consisted of picking cotton or some other hardship. There was a scene that stood out to me on a personal note. The scene were the black man was hanged and his daughter was watching as this occurred.

How often does one actually consider where a product originates or under what conditions it was produced? While out shopping a consumers main focus is on obtaining the item needed or wanted not selecting merchandise based on the “made in” tag. It is common knowledge that many products are imported from other countries. However, little thought is given to the substandard conditions that workers endure to eke out a living to maintain a poverty stricken existence. In Mardi Gras: Made in China director David Redmon demonstrates the effect globalization and capitalism have on the lives of the owner and workers of a bead factory in China while contrasting the revelry of partygoers in New Orleans. Underpaid, overworked staff toil and live in an

How did society affect this film (i.e., what currents in society led to the creation of the film)?

The importance of this film is that it puts the issue of racism and oppression in your face in such a way that it forces you to take an honest look, not just at the systematic oppression and racism experienced by African Americans, but also at how black lives in America are still undervalued as a result. In addition to this we are made aware even moreso that not much has changed for blacks in the sense

I can’t say that I honestly enjoyed watching it, but then again that is not the point of a documentary such as this. This documentary, although not the most exciting to watch, forces you to constantly evaluate and consider the information being presented to you. There were times I would have to rewind just to give my thoughts a second to catch up, and in that sense, the film fully accomplished its goal. In discussing complicated ideas such as education, employment, and obedience it showed me just how narrow my scope of the world is, and I think I can better understand what the narrator meant and how he felt when he said: “almost everything I was brought up to believe turns out to be

Film director David Redmon, created the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China, following the trail of beads from a factory in China to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, emotionally exposing the imbalances of globalization. Redmond skillfully illuminates the clash of cultures by comparing American excess and consumer ignorance against the harsh life of the Chinese factory worker. The film began with the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans where people gathered to party, drink alcohol, and expose themselves in exchange for brightly colored plastic bead necklaces. The stories follows four teenage women workers, providing insights

The movie exposes the shabby working and living conditions of the Mexican-American community. It provides some historical background on how Hispanic rights were violated by white industrialists. The land where the mine is located was once owned by members of the local Mexican-American community, however the Zinc Company moved in, took over the property and offered them the "choice" of moving or accepting employment at low wage. Additionally, the workers are enticed to live in management-owned houses and buy at management-owned stores. The homes of the Hispanics are shacks compared to those of their white co-workers with poor sanitation and bad plumbing. The stores sell goods at inflated prices, which put the workers in debt.

This movie did an excellent job portraying the time era in which the Civil War was taken place and depicts the emotions and pressures of war. The movie helped me to visual that time period in a better sense and to see the perspective of African American soldiers fighting in the Civil War. The movie showed a lot more in depth and personal feelings of the black soldiers during that time period. The movie portrayed what the black soldiers had to deal with as soldiers of the Union and it helped me to visual what I learned about the black regiments during the civil war. The film even showed the soldiers having to do manual labor and lute the southern towns and cities. It also showed how even though the black soldiers were on the same side as the white soldiers of the Union, the black soldiers were still treated as unequal and faced prejudice daily by the other white soldiers. It also showed the strong belief of many of the white Union soldiers that they fought for emancipation and the freedom of the

Although this film is disadvantaging to many people, it is also very beneficial. I think people that come from the lower class or an abusive household can really benefit from this film. The main point of this film is to show people that you can achieve anything you want to do no matter what background you come from, and although it might be hard because of economical/ personal issues you are not less of a person than anyone and you can still be successful. I love the idea of success because it doesn’t really have a set definition. You don’t necessarily need money to be/feel successful. You can work at Subway and still be successful while a twelve time Oscar winning actor can be successful. You sort of carve out your own success and make your own definition for it. This movie will also teach people that they are not on their own. Although you might think nobody is there for you, when you enter a room you don’t know what everyone is thinking or how everyone feels; you might now even know everyone. It is kind of like when you’re putting together a puzzle, you put certain pieces together and you get closer to finishing and you just need to keep trying to solve the puzzle because if you give up you just wasted your money on a puzzle

Even though the film was meant to funny, it did make me think about different cultural preduice and obstacles interacial relationships may face. Over all I enjoyed the film it poked fun at racial prejudice and brought some good topics to the table. However, I wish they would have take the opportunity to have gone deeper into racism and brought it out into the open for people to

In the light of, the director makes good points through the whole movie about what they went through. I like this movie because it gives me more information of the people who were involved or who were there during that time. Like, Ann Lee Coper (Oprah Winfrey), Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo), and the rest of the people who help fight for African Americans to be able to vote. The movie also shows the difficult and the happy time they went through. Even the problems with their family. No matter what’s going on, they were still focus and full invested in having freedom. What I learned from this movie was that they did not let all the obstacles of what they went through mess up their main goal because of that I am able to take those lesson for my

Overall I thought this was a really good movie. I thought it taught you a lot about diversity, women’s rights, poverty and peace. The movie was a very touching and inspiring movie; there is also a lot of emotion due to what they had to deal with on an everyday basis. To me the movie and their stories really teach you that you should be aware of your surroundings and to be helpful in your