Professor Claus
Soc 2510
27 april 2016
Roger and Me Take Home Essay
“Roger and Me” was a film that was produced in 1989 by director Michael Moore. Moore was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. This film shows the people of Flint and the hard times they endured during a time of major layoffs and job unemployment due to GM closing multiple factories. This documentary shows different outlooks of society and the basic sociology of Flint, Michigan. It shows very good examples of Class Conflict in terms of the people who were laid-off by General Motors. Also, the people in this movie show viewers how poverty is rampant in Flint. This movie also illustrates the functionalist perspective in terms of GM closings.
Primarily, …show more content…
Michael Moore follows the sheriff all across areas of Flint to express the true problem Flint has with poverty. The problem is relative poverty is at least considered a survivable income. “Roger and Me” shows many citizens in Absolute Poverty, this is when they cannot even afford food or shelter. One woman is interviewed about how she sells rabbits. When Michael gets to the front door and asks about the rabbits, she asks if he needs a pet or meat. This woman has been selling rabbit meat to people and using that money to buy her groceries along with her social security check. This shows how people in poverty will do anything to survive because they have no other options. Also, they talk about the attractions in Flint like the Hyatt hotel, or Autoworld. These places were supposed to bring money back into the city but people never had the money in the first place. The city used millions of dollars in taxes but was failed from the start. The city was never ready for these high dollar attractions when nobody in the city could afford food let alone a Hotel room. Poverty is seen all throughout the film. Many people in Flint today are still considered to be in absolute …show more content…
It shows how class-conflict between GM “fat cats” and the workers of the shops don’t get along on the same page. It shows how poverty is a plague sweeping throughout the city. The film also describes the functionalist perspective on why these changes happened. All in all, the Film shows a true “sociological imagination” in the way it shows how the man went crazy after the thought of losing his job. He just thought about being laid off again and snapped. He is now in a mental health institution. This scene really drive it home how serious people take these things when dealing with a struggle like that. It really put me in his shoes of what it would be like to constantly be laid off. Roger and Me does a very good job capturing the difficulties of society through al standpoints and should be used as a reference for many classes to