Gives you a good look at how globalization is working over there, and over here.
It's on
Sundance tonight at 10:30 EDT. I'm sure there are other airings coming up. I saw it early this year, and it was Quite an Eye-Opener. Highly Recommended!
This is from an review earlier this month:
August 10 -
"Mardi Gras: Made in China" documents the sacrifices that support an American institution.By Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
August 11, 2006
Early in the documentary "Mardi Gras: Made in China" a reveler in New Orleans is asked if he knows where the beads around his neck come from. "Don't know, don't care!" he shouts over the din. "They're beads for boobs, man!"
(snip)
Fortunately Redmon is smart enough to come at the problem sideways. He pointedly does not offer solutions or even condemnations but simply humanizes workers, partyers and even the intelligent, candid factory owner. "Mardi Gras" cleverly juxtaposes the apex of American bacchanalian excess with the politely sweatshop-like conditions that facilitate the fun, but rather than prissily lecturing the audience, the filmmaker mostly lets the people and images speak for themselves. There is arresting footage of one woman working at incredible, machine-like speed, shown virtually without comment. And there's plenty of whooping, vomiting partying on Bourbon Street, including enough nudity to illustrate exactly what some women do for those shiny pieces of plastic — factory owner Roger gushes in recollection, "My God, they love my beads!"
Redmon also has a talent for getting great sound bites out of his interview subjects. Roger matter-of-factly explains that he wouldn't allow men to constitute more than 10% of his workforce because "we still believe it is more easier for us to control the lady workers." After the owner of an American company that is Roger's primary customer waxes rhapsodic about how the factory needs barbed wire to keep people out and that the workers labor in silence to maximize their earning power, Redmon confides that the penalty for talking on the factory floor is a day's pay.
(snip)
Although for some it may ruin the romanticism of drunken women exposing themselves to drooling strangers with cameras for cheap plastic beads, "Mardi Gras: Made in China" is a thought-provoking, canny piece of filmmaking that puts flesh, blood and garish multicolored baubles on the skeleton of globalization.
http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/news.html