Banksy's Simpsons Opening Asks "Is Slave Labor Behind Our Products?"The elusive street artist Banksy made headlines this week when he directed the opening segment of an episode of The Simpsons. The segment satirized the very real phenomenon of slave labor existing in the supply chains of some of our most beloved products. Banksy’s animation showed shackled animals, child laborers, and enslaved Asian workers being used in the production of Simpsons merchandise. Behind barbed wire, working in dangerous, unsanitary conditions, workers stuffed Bart Simpson dolls, compiled DVDs, manufactured t-shirts, and even drew the animation cells for the cartoon show.
Banksy’s Simpsons segment was possibly a dig at the fact that the show’s animation is partially subcontracted to production companies in South Korea — a cost cutting measure taken by 20th Century Fox. But his satire also goes deeper and darker than that. There is a chance that Banksy has seen Santa’s Workshop: Inside China’s Slave Labor Toy Factories, a 2004 documentary depicting the horrific conditions under which Chinese laborers produce the toys we enjoy in the West.
Experts say about 80% of the toys in the U.S. are made in China. Very often, they are produced by workers toiling in abusive conditions. Mattel — maker of Barbie and one of the giants of the American toy industry—manufactures the majority of its toys in China. And, as Eric Clark indicates in his book The Real Toy Story, Mattel is blind to the suffering of their Chinese employees. Clark quotes one factory worker as saying, “Mattel has no way to know the truth about what really goes on here. Every time there is an inspection, the bosses tell us what lies to say.”
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