The Show Must Go On

Mike Daisey’s continuation of his theater show after admitting that he was lying is an important contemporary artifact because it demonstrates the tendency of Americans to put morals and facts aside and focus on pure profit. This drive for profit has been embedded in Americans throughout all the time periods that we have studied.

Daisey’s show outlines horrific working conditions and specific stories from workers in one of Apple’s supposed Chinese sweatshops. However, after investigation by reporters, Daisey was forced to come out and admit that the show is just a piece of "theater", and not wholly true. Daisey’s use of the word “theater” indicates that it is merely an attempt to please the audience, not provide facts of a certain situation. A theater show, for example, can act out the brutality and chilling times of the Holocaust, without providing one hundred percent accuracy in its stories.

Daisey’s directors go on to describe that “art is different than journalism.” Art is a form of expression where an artist creates something based on their emotions and understanding of a certain situation. Journalism, in contrast, is limited to providing cold hard facts to a certain audience. A journalist, for example, could detail the horrors of a certain sweat shop and quote the workers about what they go through. An artist, on the other hand, could paint that same worker with blood and tears running over his body. The distinction between art and journalism, though seemingly small, is a clear indication that Daisey fabricated certain parts of his show purely to attract audiences, and ultimately gain profit. The fact that Daisey’s shows continued to run despite being proven false is a clear indication that Daisey just wants his show to make money.

The theme of making money is still present in the modern day. In Mr. O’Connor’s blog post, Polling Matters, he reminds us that “media outlets are businesses.” A business is a company or shop that focuses on buying or selling products in order to make money. The cigarette business, for example, exemplifies that they care only that people buy their product so that they make money, and care less about the negative health issues associated with it.

The drive for profit was clear even during the Salem witch trials. The Englishmen who landed in Salem were “motivated mainly by a hunt for profit” (Crucible 5). The idea of profit is still present during this time period. Profit, as you know, is a drive to make money. The word “hunt” is not only foreshadowing the witch-hunt that ensued in Salem, but also indicates that people are willing to go to extreme lengths to make money. A dog hunts for squirrels so that it has something to eat, similarly to how people hunt for profit. A hunt, to me, indicates that a person will go to all lengths, even kill someone or something, to get what they want. This demonstrates that people will do whatever it takes to get money.

During the Civil War, the drive for profit was also a top priority for most people: “Auctions of slaves took place at public slave markets” (Foner 380). An auction is a place where people sell their goods (or in this case, slaves) for the highest amount of money possible. This is a clear suggestion that the drive for money was preceded morals. During the Civil War, Southerners put morals aside and did all they could to make money.

Throughout the times in history we have studied, the theme of profit preceding morals and common sense has been present, but as they say, the show must go on.

Forced Labor in China

A couple weeks ago, we had numerous class discussions about modern forms of slavery. We listened to a very intense poem called "Shirt" by Robert Pinsky, and we were then assigned to write a poem or story about modern day slavery in a certain country or factory. Before the assignment, I had never thought much of forced labor, and how big of a role it plays in the American society. A shockingly high 98% of the clothes in America have been imported from other countries, according to ABCNews.  But the problem isn't that we import too much, it's that what we import is made by slave labor in other countries.

Recently, I found a story that details the life of a slave in a factory in Masanjia, China. The story was discovered when a woman and her husband opened a box of Halloween decorations to decorate their house. But when they opened the box, they found more than just the decorations, they found this:



In the letter, a woman from the Masanji Forced Labor camp in China begs whoever opens the item to alert the World Human Rights Assocation about the cruel violations that occur daily. She works fifteen hours a day, gets zero days off. If a worker tries to get a day off, they "will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark". And they only make $1.61 a month.

Yes, the details are horrid, and yes, we should all go out of our way to make sure we stop things like this from happening. But a larger impact would be the impact that items made by slave labor would have on the US companies that sell them. According to Title 19 Section 1307 of the US Code, any item made in a country by forced labor is not legally allowed to come in the US. If these laws were truly followed by the US, I would be interested to see how much of the products and goods we buy are made by forced slave labor.

After all of this, I have been left questioning: Are products made by slaves a part of the American society? Is there anything that we can do to ensure that we don't buy or support slave labor? I think that the Americans rely too much on cheap, slave-made goods in order to make a profit, and that most care more about money than suffering people in other countries. What do you think?