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!"

 And therein lies the problem facing filmmaker David Redmon. The particulars of the 14- to 16-hour days in the Chinese Mardi Gras paraphernalia factories are distasteful but sadly unsurprising (one woman figures she makes 1 cent per 12 necklaces; monthly pay tops out around $62). They're the kind of ugly ingredients that most people shrug at and swallow as part of the capitalist gumbo. So how to hold the interest of viewers, who might not cotton to hearing about how the andouille sausage they're eating was made, so to speak?

 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.

But it's the filmmaker's eye for irony that makes this dish so spicy. He lets Roger declare, with more than a hint of moral superiority, that male and female workers are not allowed to fraternize, and if one is caught in the barracks of the opposite sex, the penalty is a month's pay. Then we see the highly sexualized, even obscene, tokens made at some of these factories. Elsewhere, Redmon says the practice of exchanging beads for female nudity at Mardi Gras began in 1978, as did Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in China.

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.

MPAA rating: Unrated

Director-cinematographer-editor Dave Redmon. Producers Redmon, Deborah and Dale Smith.

Exclusively at Laemmle's Fairfax Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd.

LA Weekly, by Ella taylor

GO MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA If someone told you that the cost of the cheapo plastic necklaces you wore to carouse at Mardi Gras was equivalent to several months’ pay for the young Chinese women who made them, how would you react? Probably in much the same way as most of the New Orleans party animals who got the info from director David Redmon — awful, terrible, next. This smart, witty look at the human cost of free-market reforms and globalization tracks the necklaces from hard labor at one end to hedonism at the other. In China, largely to support their families, the mostly teenage female work force slaves 14 hours a day (plus overtime), with toxic materials, for $3 to $4 a day, sleeping in dormitories and, among other arbitrary infringements on their privacy, forbidden to fraternize with male coworkers. In New Orleans, young women drop their bras for drunken louts in return for the baubles, which they covet for a night, then toss into the trash. Redmon shows Mardi Gras photos to the Chinese girls, who giggle in disbelief, and quizzes their complacent bosses, one of whom — an American — breezily trots out the catchall defense that if he didn’t do it, someone else would. Someone else did: A coda tells us that a resourceful employee stole buckets of his money and plunged him into bankruptcy. The heart bleeds. (Fairfax)

'Mardi Gras' shows grim reality behind the party
By Glenn Whipp, Film Critic
U-Entertainment
David Redmon's debut documentary, "Mardi Gras: Made in China," doesn't expressly set out to shame Americans. But his portrait of the grim effects of globalization sure doesn't make you proud to wave the red, white and blue, and even manages to sober up a few Mardi Gras revelers in the process — no small trick, that.

 Redmon's ambitions are modest. He wants to learn about all those brightly colored beads that have become a fixture in Mardi Gras celebrations. Where do they come from? Who makes them? Under what conditions? And, after finding the results, Redmon wants to ask the drunken masses congregating in New Orleans if these worthless strings of beads — the ones women flash their boobs for at a rate, the movie notes, of 2,000 breasts every three minutes — are worth the human sacrifice.

 To accomplish this, Redmon made a couple of trips to rural China to the fenced-in compound of benevolent factory despot Roger Wong, who pays his employees (mostly teenage girls) 10 cents an hour to inhale toxic fumes and perform repetitive, finger-slicing tasks on shifts that range from 14 to 16 hours a day.

 Wong likes to speak of how his employees enjoy their life in the compound, but this delusional man becomes most animated when speaking of the punishments he metes out to keep his workers churning out the requisite tons of beads per day. Those who talk while working are fined a day's pay. And if the daily quota isn't met, everyone loses a portion of the day's earnings.

 The contrast between Wong's idea of a worker's paradise and actual life in the factory compound is great, but not as pronounced as the disparities between the Chinese girls making the beads and the young American women exposing themselves for them. When Redmon asks Mardi Gras revelers if they know where the beads come from, most profess their ignorance ("Don't know, don't care ... they're beads for boobs") or demand to be kept in the dark, since too much information might spoil their good time.

 Those partygoers who do look at Redmon's factory footage are immediately crestfallen. "Now that you see what goes on ... it's not fun," one young woman says. Awareness often isn't.

 Redmon isn't a killjoy. He just wants Americans to think about the origins of all their low-priced imports and factor that information into purchasing decisions. And, maybe, too, acknowledge their privileged status and realize that, with privilege, comes a certain responsibility.

MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA
 (Not rated: language, nudity)
Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster.
Director: David Redmon.
Running time: 1 hr. 15 min.
Playing: Laemmle Fairfax in Los Angeles.
In a nutshell: Mardi Gras revelers sober up (some of them, at least) when they learn where all those beads come from.

August 9 - The fantastic True/False Film Festival - based in Columbia, Missouri - is coming to NYC on Monday, August 21 and Tuesday, August 22 at the IFC Center! Click here for more information. I'd definitely recommend any film screening at True/False; one of my all time memorable festivals.

August 8 - Another review for MGMIC has appeared in Whole Life Times. The film opens this Friday for one week at the Laemmle Theater, Fairfax 3 in Los Angeles.

Mardi Gras: Made in China
Produced, directed, edited and filmed by David Redmon
Laemmle Theater, Fairfax 3, Los Angeles - August 11 - 17 (one week)

Review by Molly Freedenberg, Whole Life Times

Mardi Gras: Made in China is the latest in the recent trend of sincere, even-handed documentaries that are wresting the genre away from Michael Moore. This one’s an especially smart profile juxtaposing the young, exploited women in Fuzhou, China, who make plastic Mardi Gras beads with the privileged New Orleans tourists who bare their breasts to acquire them.

 The film’s success is due to one-man-band David Redmon, the Texas native with a PhD in sociology and a lifelong interest in Carnival festivals, whose brain birthed this film. The naturally curious Redmon elicits candid, informative, intimate interviews from impoverished workers, the wealthy factory owner and drunken Mardi Gras revelers, all of whom seem to be responding to the same unbiased affection Redmon used in the editing process.

 The result is a quick, engaging snapshot of globalization and its effect on seemingly unconnected cultures. What it isn’t, luckily, is a moralistic lesson on the dangers of capitalism and excess. Instead, by showing footage of China to revelers on Bourbon Street, showing footage of New Orleans to workers in China, and showing the film to everyone he can, Redmon hopes to “open up a visual connection between two people who seemingly have nothing to do with each other.” “It provides a visual bridge,” he said.

 Should conditions in China change? Absolutely, said Redmon. But he doesn’t mean to rain on anyone’s Fat Tuesday parade. “The issue goes beyond the individual,” he explained. “It’s an international system of trade.”
—Molly Freedenberg

July 6 - "Sweatshops: The Reel World of Globalization, Documentary Films to Understand Corporate Globalization and Sweatshops" by Farzin Mojtabai & Jason Cangialos

Activists keep the corporate agenda of globalization in check and the frontline battle is often waged at the gates of sweatshop factories. There have been a few films that capture this movement, all coming from different angles, but with the same goal in mind - exposing the corporate machine. While film as an educational resource conjures up old-school 1950 documentary instructional film reels - "Say Billy, just what is a sweatshop anyway? Gee Susan, that's a tough one, lets go ask the factory owner...", the documentary is a powerful tool. Whether to see the faces behind the labels and goods we consume or to see the bigger picture of corporate globalization, the documentaries reviewed here will inspire, scare, make you laugh and induce tears of anger.

If you had no distrust of corporations before or were only just skeptical, be prepared for the scales to tip once you see The Corporation. Based on the book by Joel Bakan, who had a revelation in college that a corporation, if having the same rights as a person, could be diagnosed as a psychopath. That's just the surface of the problem, not to mention just what these psychopaths have been doing all over the world. With haunting interviews from the Howard Zinn, Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Naomi Klien, Vandana Shiva and a cadre of other voices that all culminate into the chorus of something is wrong in the world today. While the film engages a dark and sinister perception of corporatized chaos, we are left with some shining examples of humanity's triumphs.

Now perhaps its going too far to paint the entire corporate world as servants to an evil agenda, and The Corporation does discuss the problem of white collar criminals locked in a system. So maybe the engines of economic power really leave those that operate it just as clueless as the rest of us. The Yes Men are that rare breed of intelligence, wit, tenacity and comedic genius that get away with the pranks they do. Igor Vamos and Jacques Servin, if that is even their real names, are founding members of The Yes Men, featured in this hilarious documentary. The Yes Men take anti-consumerism /corporate activism and pranks to a whole new level, and even in their highly publicized accomplishments still manage to dumbfound board rooms and seminars. The film follows their excursion into global trade negotiations, where using a fake website of the GATT, get invited to speak in the media and at seminars as WTO experts. Why does it work? Much of what they say is true, no matter how awful or absurd it sounds, and stupid white men are just damn convincing when they wear a suit.

While The Yes Men exposes the ridiculous nature of deciding the fate of developing nations from plush convention centers in Scandinavia, Stephanie Black's lyrical documentary Life and Debt digs into the dirt for answers. A scenic composition of images from Jamaica shows the reality of the decisions made by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) that affect farmers and factory workers alike. At once gripping, Black's message comes across softly, like her scenes of 3 Rastafarian philosophers around a pit fire, who ring in tune with the words of Jamaica Kincaid and the gentle music of Ziggy Marley. While this is a story of one people from Jamaica, their struggle reaches across the oceans around the Global South.

While these films are available on DVD and still shown at screenings around the world, 2 documentaries are making their way through the challenges of funding and releasing independent features. Mardi Gras: Made in China is the ultimate juxtaposition of western consumer culture and factory life in Southeast Asia. David Redmon took to the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras and showed images of factory conditions from the bead manufactures in China to the ladies flashing their goods for the prized jewelry. He also showed footage of just what those beads are used for at Mardi Gras to the women factory workers in China and all of it is sure to manifest in one big transcultural-exchange no one expected. While as of writing this, the film is not widely available on DVD yet, Redmon is touring the film to festivals and screenings.

The second film to keep an eye out for is Sweat, which follows St. John's University Soccer coach, Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu to Indonesia to live in solidarity with Nike factory workers. This is the real deal, on the ground with the workers and the filmmakers subjected themselves to the reality of being one of the sweated. The film, while not yet released, is sure to be a bold response to the criticisms Keady received for his public stand against Nike's empire built on the fragile backs of the global factory. While all the films mentioned here are certainly enlightening and educational, they capture a certain entertainment value rarely seen in trying to get a message across.

July 5 - "The hidden story behind Mardi Gras beads"

By John E. Mitchell
North Adams Transcript

The scenario itself is so stupid you can hardly believe it: One group of people spends about 12 hours a day and is paid 10 cents an hour to manufacture goods that another group of people tosses drunkenly at each other as they flash their private parts during a big, outdoor celebration. The items end up tossed in the garbage after the party. Sure, it sounds silly, but that's what happens every Mardi Gras.

David Redmon's "Mardi Gras: Made in China" is a bold piece of documentary filmmaking, with Redmon tracing Mardi Gras beads from the naked chests of drunken coeds to a factory line in China comprised of teenage girls, and managing to maintain humor and a sense of fairness amidst the obvious immediacy and potential for grim subject matter.

Redmon takes his camera to both the Chinese factory that produces the beads and the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, where they are put to use. Even when juxtaposed to the degradation of a Chinese factory worker, the scenes from Mardi Gras stand out as much more alien and disturbing. Still, Redmon manages the near impossible feat of tapping into the humanity of the drunken revelers on occasion — for every soused lout who ignores the question of "Do you know where the beads come from?" by bellowing something about a party, there is another person who shows some sign of remorse, not only because deep down they already know the answer, but also quickly own up to the fact that the beads are disposable garbage.

The beads are made in factories in China, largely populated by teenage girls with little education, who live, eat and breathe work as they pass the time in factory dormitories and live in fear of punishments for speaking during work or dating a boy from the same factory. Though it's easy to imagine that the factory jobs do represent something better than the norm in that culture, it's still hard to accept that a penny a necklace and half-day shifts are very compassionate ways of elevating a standard of life or building a hopeful future.

Redmon has astounding access in the factory — the girls speak freely on all matters, from their job fears and complaints to their affection for the other girls in the factory. Equally, Redmon spends a lot of time with the factory owner, whose officious ruthlessness about the bottom line is matched only by his earnestness and the gentleness with which he expresses these notions. The significance
that is put into the work — and the actual hours and effort by the workers — can be quickly dispelled by an Google search for the term "Mardi Gras girls."

The real problem is that while Redmon appears to be chronicling one item that serves prominent importance in one localized celebration, the implications of his film are much larger and far more disturbing. American holidays have become more and more filled with cheap, often throwaway, paraphernalia, from the plastic eggs of Easter to the tiny American flags of Independence Day — and these are mostly manufactured in China. Is the gaudiness of American holidays now being subsidized by the cheap labor of Asian teenagers with no future
and very little in the present?

There is an irony, however, with the revelation that most of the factory girls think the beads are tacky and ugly and the American desire for them has always been a mystery. The answer why — as offered through Redmon and photos of Mardi Gras — seem to confirm something about Americans the workers have suspected all along. They giggle at the naughtiness of it all and shake their heads at the other culture's stupidity — but they are still able to explain, very clearly, that they still want fair pay and workers' rights for making the stupid, ugly trinkets.

July 1 - The Soros Fellowships have been posted on the Soros Foundation webpage. Here's a description from one of the six films that received the grant:

Dawn Logsdon and Lolis Elie, New Orleans, LA, filmmakers: to complete a documentary, five years in the making, on Tremé, a historic New Orleans neighborhood that was home to one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most politically active black communities in the country during slavery. They will trace Katrina’s impact on the residents, local character, and racial composition of the neighborhood.

June 30 - I've been in New Orleans for the last few days, following up on people in the film. I also found a tremendous change in the weather: it's hot! It reminds me of the hot summer heat in Texas that I experienced growing up.

June 22 - Cara Anna, writer for the Associated Press, just released an article and iPod cast about Mardi Gras: Made in China. Click here for the article and interview.

Editing this current film is draining my energy. I've decided to label myself a worker instead of a filmmaker because editing involves a form of labor similar to manual work. I'm glad to have been instilled at an early age with self-discipline and a work ethos. But I still love the life of Dionysus or Carnival. I guess having elements combined from both is better than immersing myself in one or the other. It also makes sense how all three films (the Mardi Gras film, the film in Reynosa, Mexico, and the current one in New Orleans) all have themes from various Carnivals - Day of the Dead, New Year's Eve, Mardi Gras, and Second Lines. All three films also have an important theme of physical labor (making Victoria Secret Bras, making fire hydrants, manual labor and construction in New Orleans, factory work in China).

June 20 - Editing is going well and coming along swiftly. Our goal is to have a rough cut done on Thursday to screen for a few friends this weekend. Last night we screened the first 28 mins for our friends Chandler and Eric. The screening went well and the feedback was honest. Both Eric and Chandler had different comments - ranging from confusion about character development to conceptual issues - but what struck me was their question of why we are focusing so much of our energy on "time." That is, why does a feature documentary need to be somewhere between 78 and 100 mins? I couldn't give an original response except what's usually said. Instead, they asked us to focus on story development and content. Their simple advice made sense, and when the self-imposed time restrictions are removed, then the story seems to take precedence over time. In other words, the approach to focus on story instead of time allows us to understand the film in a unique way.

June 10 - Tonight Rooftop Films is screening one of my favorite documentaries from 2005: CZECH DREAM. Party starts at 8:30, movie starts at 9pm.

Good news, sort-of. Our current film has been cut down to 2:30 (two hours and thirty minutes) from four hours. The screening at The Sanctuary for Independent Media went incredibly well. We screened a rough cut of Act One at 68 minutes, hoping to get feedback to shorten it to 20 minutes. Getting feedback was no problem; the problem - which is not a real problem - was that the feedback was all positive and people were debating and discussing the film, wanting to know what happens next and telling us to remove nothing.

The next day we visited Steve and Branda, teachers at RPI and co-creators of the Sanctuary, patiently sat down with us, watched the film, and gave us two hours of advice! Their 12 year old daughter, Masha, also provided insightful feedback.

 Editing. Editing. Editing. What the hell is editing? I don't know, but I finally had a break-through the other night around 3:00am. My intent was to place one shot in a specific location in the timeline. Instead, I accidentally dropped it somewhere else, in an "incorrect" location, and suddenly a small crack in thinking had developed into a momentary rupture of imagination. It finally occurred to me what the film is about, other than it's practical theme. Roughly, the film is about liminality and the existence between dreaming and being awake. "We've been evicted!" states one couple as they enter "Kamp Katrina," Ms. Pearl's designated name for her back yard haven. "Eviction" is a statement and act of exclusion, an in-between state of existence of neither here nor there; flux. Post-Katrina New Orleans represents a momentary and permanent social-psychological rupture where some people have moved to another location, a forced moment of drifting, where conditions and activities are uncertain (yes, I realize it varies by race, class, and gender).

Heck, even editing an unscripted documentary film has similar liminal characteristics: editing is an in between state of affairs; I'm neither at the start of the film nor the ending; the editing of sequences are constantly changing; it's in flux. The major difference, however, is that I have an idea of where I'm going and what's going to happen at the end of the film. People in moments of liminality don't know the next stage because they've been disconnected from sacred and profane rituals that reinforce support through a transitional moment.

Life in the U.S. is sort of liminal, too. Most people don't know their ending, yet the majority of people have everyday rituals that keep us away from drifting and feeling in flux, anomic. Social class and race is often a predictor of suicide and access to health care. For instance, I read a report somewhere that the number of suicides after Hurricane Katrina increased by more than 500% in the Gulf Coast Region. Everyday life had been disrupted, rituals and connections to institutions and the sacred and profane were torn asunder. Rituals provide a mental and physical safe haven and connect us to an imagined and real institutions such as families, religions, dance, schools, work, and the media. Yes, I realize that this framework for understanding rituals and liminality is presented as functional and doesn't question the work, religion, or the quality of schools when, in fact, those institutions maybe one of the causes of flux.

Even the desire to edit is reinforced by rituals. It's not only the determination and drive to finish the important story that motivates me to edit, but also looking forward to making my morning coffee, walking to the bagel shop, getting a warm muffin, or checking my email to speak with people who I can't see due to physical proximity. It's preparing my chair, taking afternoon walks, or rewarding myself by watching a movie that all keep me interested - those in between moments that bring me back to wanting to edit and reinforcing the desire finish the story.

June 1 - I hate editing. I love editing. Editing is creative. Editing is technical. Editing is boring. Editing is accidental. Editing is intentional. Editing is discipline. Editing makes my neck burn.

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival has posted their films for June, 2006. It is one of the only film festivals in New York City dedicated to addressing human rights issues. The small number of people who organize this festival work day and night to bring the issues addressed in the films into public discourse as well as promote active social change.

Rooftop Films begins their summer series of films this weekend. I remember a few years ago submitting MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA to Rooftop Films as a short and then attending its first screening. Every year I attend the film series and every year I walk away meeting new people and seeing thoughtful and engaging films.

Tuesday, June 6 at 7:30pm Ashley and I will be in Troy, NY to screen Mardi Gras: Made in China. Afterwards we will show one hour from our current work in progress documentary about Hurricane Katrina. The screening will take place at The Sanctuary for Independent Media.

Back to editing...

May 23 - Almost a year ago I submitted MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA to the academic journal called Teaching Sociology. Last week they published their fantastic review of the film. Please note that the version reviewed by Teaching Sociology did not contain the 4 hours of extras. Below I have pasted the entire review.

The documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China looks behind the scenes of the global “bead trade” –the brightly-colored plastic beads that are thrown from floats and balconies to celebrants in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  The director/producer, David Redmon, juxtaposes interviews and images of the young women working in a Chinese bead factory, located in a rural region of Fuzhou, with young American women and men celebrating in the streets of New Orleans during the annual Mardi Gras carnival.  Redmon also interviews the wealthy Chinese owner of the bead factory; the owner’s American counterpart, who distributes the beads; and a long-time local resident of New Orleans, Ms. Pearl.  There are no voiceover comments on the conditions or behaviors in either location; rather Redmon allows the individuals on both ends of this global market to speak for themselves.
 
Mardi Gras: Made in China has several potential sociological uses in either an undergraduate or graduate-level classroom.  From one perspective, the film is a commentary on global trade.  Cheap, plastic beads are produced in China by women who make $62 a month.  The beads are then sent halfway across the globe to become a trinket tossed by the handfuls to New Orleans partygoers.  The documentary recounts a single case of how the consumer capitalism enjoyed in wealthy nations like the United States is built upon the labor of poorly paid workers in a less developed country.  The operating principle of global capitalism is to obtain the lower costs for production.  Thus, the beads, once produced in Czechoslovakia, are now manufactured in China.  The future of Chinese bead manufacturing is uncertain; the factory owner describes growing competition in the bead market from other less developed countries, like Vietnam, that do not have the same level of safety regulations.  In a moment of apparent cognitive dissonance, this self-described capitalist owner justifies the dynamics of free market competition while simultaneously portraying his relationship with American distributor as one of traditionally-based “loyalty.”
 
The film can also be used to analyze gender relations in two very different cultural contexts.  The majority of the bead factory workers are poor, young women, some of whom left school as young as age 15 to start working in a factory that has made the male owner very wealthy.  One young woman describes her own life goal as working for the future success of her younger brother.  When she visits home, a tenement-like apartment, she presents her adolescent brother with a cheap plastic watch despite his protests of not knowing how to tell time.
 
Life in the factory compound is strict, and the factory owner describes his own role as instilling proper (gender) values.  Male and female workers are housed separately and any interaction between a male and female inside the compound can result in lost wages.  The young Chinese women seem childlike as they dance to popular music during their time off, display their stuffed animals, and walk arm-in-arm around the factory compound.  By sharp contrast, the young women on the streets of New Orleans appear jaded as they move freely around the streets of the city at night, where they unreflectively/playfully expose their breasts or other body parts to the gawking young men in exchange for cheap plastic beads.  In between these two extremes is Ms. Pearl, a woman in her late 50s, who dresses in a clown like costume for the carnival in hopes of getting beads and other small trinkets, which she plans to give to her grandchildren.
 
In a brilliant directing strategy, Redmon lets the individuals at each end of the global market see each other.  Redmon show pictures of the New Orleans celebrants to the Chinese factory workers, who exhibit embarrassment looking at the exposed body parts of the young American women.  The photos are eagerly passed around the shop floor.  One Chinese woman wonders why anyone would expose her body for these “ugly” beads.  Back in New Orleans, many of the individuals demonstrate ignorance or a lack of caring when asked where they thought the beads came from.  When asked to view images of the Chinese factory workers, some young Americans were reluctant to even view pictures; several expressed concerns that the Chinese workers might be toiling in sweatshop conditions and they didn’t want to ruin their party mood with such knowledge.  Once the Americans viewed the digital images, they described a feeling of shame in continuing to wear the beads.
 
Finally, one of the most important ways Mardi Gras: Made in China can be used in sociology classroom is to illustrate how artifacts/products are embedded with social and cultural meaning; rather the context shapes the way an individual perceives the beads.  The factory owner beams with pride because he has heard that Americans call out for his beads in the streets of New Orleans and that people treasure them.  For the factory workers,  the beads are a cheap product that Americans wear while the factory itself provides a wage for millions of unskilled Chinese laborers.  The American distributor, who goes bankrupt by the end of the film, identifies the beads as one of the many products in a vast global marketplace.  And for the young women and men in New Orleans, the beads are a token of representing either an act of sexual liberation or moment of public voyeurism, largely depending upon your gender perspective.  Finally, Redmon seems to be commenting on the disposability of many consumer good: At the end of the documentary he includes a street scene filmed the morning after carnival has ended.  A mechanical street sweeper vacuums up thousands of discarded beads left lying throughout the French Quarter.
 
Mardi Gras: Made in China was released before the summer of 2005.  In our post-Katrina environment, this documentary could open up a classroom discussion about the dynamics of class and race in the city of New Orleans or about social structure factors, such as the collapse of the tourist trade, which will make infrastructure rebuilding a challenge.  In this new social environment, the beads have taken on yet another cultural meaning.  Volunteer organizations like the Red Cross are giving beads to the disaster relief workers to show support for and solidarity with the people of New Orleans.
 
The pivotal learning – and – teaching moment comes towards the end of the film when individuals at each end of the global market see the other.  For the sociology teacher, this moment can be used to facilitate a classroom discussion about globalizations, gender, and/or social and cultural meanings.  Moving from questions such as “Whom made those beads?”  to more personal questions about who made the students’ Nike shoes, Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirts, or Prada handbags can increase a students; level of critical analysis about significant social changes.  Without the traditional voiceover found in many educational documentaries, Redmon leaves the film open to the potential interpretations that can be based on the various perspectives recounted in his documentary.  While this means a teacher or a student may be required to gather her or his own background information about specific points raised, Mardi Gras: Made in China’s documentary style also allows the film to be used in multiple ways depending upon the teacher and the focus of the course.
 
Susan M. Alexander
Saint Mary’s College

May 22 - I grew up in Mansfield, Texas and relish almost all of my experiences there, even working at Wal-Mart, grocery stores, box-folding factories, and the other 31 or so jobs I had before I turned 21. The professionals said I had "ADD," until they invented "ADHD" to explain why I couldn't hold a job. "Take this pill" they instructed. I simply called my irritability and chaotic jumping from one job to the next "alienation" from working in too many boring, unchallenging minimum wage jobs. Sacking groceries, folding boxes in a factory next to a conveyor belt, making fast food at Taco Bell, Wendy's, and McDonalds, telemarketing, and mowing yards (I actually liked mowing yards, a lot).

The best job was working at a factory in Kennedale, Texas - just next to Mansfield - where on my first day I was instructed to sit on the ground, pick/remove maggots stuck to tortilla chips all day, and then place each chip inside a large wooden box for $5.15 an hour. I was 15 years old at the time and thought, "I wonder what they're doing with these chips?"

The next day my boss instructed me to repeat the fun task of removing maggots from tortilla chips. "Where are all these chips going?" I asked. He said, "Local farmers use the chips for pig slop" ("pig food"). So I did as I was told, until one day I worked overtime after the boss left work. "Make sure you finish those chips!" he told me. A  few hours later a large truck drove up, a man got out, walked over to the wooden boxes with maggot free chips inside them, then placed them in the back of his large truck. "Where are you taking the chips" I asked. "To be packaged," he responded. "For who?" I inquired. "For people to eat." I was shocked. I tried to explain to him about the maggots on all the chips - and the many more inside the warehouse - but he didn't believe me. I even showed him the numerous maggots I had removed, but he wanted nothing to do with my claim. After all, his job was to be somewhere on time and deliver his orders to another warehouse, sort of like Thomas Friedman does for the many companies that pay him to deliver his ideologies for us to eat.

I've always wanted to return to Mansfield and make a fiction film about a kid mowing yards, jumping around from job to job, and finding ways to get in - and stay out of - trouble by simply asking questions. Luckily, Richard Linklater has made a similar film without getting in trouble, so far. It's called FAST FOOD NATION, based on the nonfiction book "Fast Food Nation." Here's the trailer, and here's a fair interview with Linklater from the The Guardian (I actually disagree with some of what he says during the interview, especially his statement, "I think they should make it a felony to criticise a film product. Particularly my film product. It's anti-American. I'd like to see people get sued if they wrote a bad review of my movie. If you can't say something nice you shouldn't say anything at all."). It's funny that the film hasn't come out yet, but it already has "scores" on IMDB.

May 20 - Here's the funniest criticism of my film so far... It's written by "The Ongoing Cinematic Education of Steven Carlson." Here's a few other reviewthhat I recently found on a webpage called Rotten Tomatoes. It's a webpage where you can access almost any review of almost any film. Anyway, here's Stevie's review.

Liberal-problem documentary hampered by ineffectual filmmaking. By ineffectual, I don't mean that the technical aspects of the film are incompetent -- it's pretty standard-issue stuff in that regard, with pallid DV photography that is a necessary evil these days in the world of low-budget documentary. What I refer to, rather, is the lack of balls on the part of director/interviewer David Redmon. His intentions are good, but he's not much for confrontation. I appreciate the fact that he'd rather let the images and words of his participants speak for themselves, and I also recognize that, on some level, this passive approach was necessary to get some of the footage he got. The fact remains, though, that this passivity leads to a couple points being made early on, after which the film has nothing left. It retreads over the same stuff (globalization is bad, Chinese labor is exploited, Americans don't really know or care) without any new insight or angle. Factory owner Raymond Wong, in particular, is a wasted opportunity: Sitting at his desk, all smiles as he explains that his factory is one of the finest and most humane in China and that his workers are happy and well-treated even as we see the opposite, this guy comes off as a muckraker's dream. Redmon could nail this motherfucker to the wall if he wanted, but, some late-film provocation aside, he prefers to let Wong hang himself. This, then, renders the film a bit toothless. At the end of it, what do we have? A couple drunken revelers on Bourbon Street have had their consciousnesses briefly raised. Good for you, I guess, Mr. Redmon, but I weep to imagine what Michael Moore or Robert Greenwald could have made of this.

Grade: C+

May 17 - For the last four days I've successfully transported myself from a room in Brooklyn to a room in CT to edit 712 ALVAR ST with Ashley.  Tim is in Manhattan doing the same thing - he's working on the "Mr. Joe sequence" for the film right now (picture coming soon). Our goal is to construct a 3 hour rough cut by June 3. So far it seems impossible, as every 10 seconds put into the film seems like it takes one hour to construct. I've realized that I'm a night editor; I go to sleep at 5 or 6 every morning and then wake up around noon to repeat the routine. Ohhhh, I'm also dogsitting Ashley's parent's dog named Kali, who just happens to have a severe stomach ache. Yes, that means very bad news... Messy news...

On a brighter note, here's a beautiful picture of Ms. Pearl on Canal Street during a rally for housing.

May ??? - I've lost track of the date... Heck, I don't even know what day it is! It seems that I've been embedded in my chair for about a week, intensely editing the next film for about 16 hours a day. Every once in a while I take a break for a cup of coffee, but then realize that I've forgotten to eat! Editing can be fun, but it's difficult work - a different kind of labor than manual labor. Storytelling, it seems to me, is both creative and frustrating. It's frustrating to sit in front of the story for 12 hours and suddenly realize that the sequence I've been developing hits a dead end - I call it "getting stuck." It's creative when images come together without intending for them to work together, yet it's also frustrating when that happens without effort and intention. I want intention to be met with intended outcome. 

Right now, for me, editing has been a series of asking unrelated questions in order to connect overlapping stories. That's why I'm constantly amazed that some independent films and documentaries are actually completed. There's so many details, such as sound, gaining access, eating, patience, keeping up with the people in the film, negotiating roles... I've never really thought about why I do it, although people often ask that question: "Why do you make films?" For me, responding to the "how" question is easier: "How did you end up making the film/films?" The "why" question is always met with "I don't know." Really, I don't know. Let me think about for a while.

Tonight Ashley and I met with Eric Liebman (see webpage here) who created the music and sound for a beautiful, patient, and slow paced film titled THE CHANCES OF THE WORLD CHANGING. It's coming to POV soon and is currently screening at film festivals. We're trying to come up with sound that matches the images in the film. It's tricky, a different kind of tricky when compared to editing. Which I need to continue doing now because it's 2:21am... I'll post scenes from the film soon.

May 4 - Last night after a long day of editing 712 ALVAR STREET Ashley and I watched two documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival. MAQUILAPOLIS and JESUS CAMP.

We stood in line for over an hour in the rain waiting to get tickets to see JESUS CAMP (86 mins), until a Tribeca volunteer shouted, "Tickets are sold out!" Then we waited until everyone left and then walked up to the ticket counter and said, "Two for Jesus Camp." Surprisingly, the ticket man handed us two tickets and we walked inside the theater with about 20 remaining seats and disorganized Tribeca workers who were overwhelmed because the film (thankfully) started 20 minutes late. We were lucky enough to sit down as JESUS CAMP opened with a group of boys and girls (under 12) who were faithfully singing and talking in tongues to Jesus in the collective atmosphere of their Pentecostal church. Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota is quickly introduced, along with four children who will be attending the camp to solidify their faith in George W. Bush, a Christian United States, pro-life dogma, and Jesus. Using a variety of toys and minature baby dolls, the kids eagerly learn why it's "important" for George W. Bush to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court Judge to the courts. The kids also learn the "importance" of bringing fundamentalist Christian values to an "unchristian nation" and how it's "necessary to take over the world with Christianity because Christians are right and every other religion is wrong." Frightening, thoughtful, and appropriate to current issues, JESUS CAMP is the best documentary film I've seen since SALESMAN. The storytelling is superb, and so is the cinematography, editing, sound, and directing. I'm still in shock at the quality of the film. Loki Films is the production company, although very little information about the film is presented on their webpage.

MAQUILAPOLIS (68 mins) is about two women maquiladora workers - called promotoras (community-based activists) - in Tijuana who organize against their company for polluting local rivers and failing to pay workers severance pay. The strength of the film's story is its indictment of a few factories that damage the water and cause wounds on the women's bodies (and the local residents'). In the neighborhoods we are introduced to electrical wires laying on the ground mixed in mud and water with smoke and awful hissing noises due to the overlapping snake-like electrical cords. Through interviews we learn about the number of people and animals that have died from stepping on the electrical cords. The film also introduces the ability of a small number of people who can organize against maquiladora owners, bring them to court, and force them to clean up the toxins intentionally left on the ground. However, the film is repetitive and about 20 minutes too long. Some scenes seem scripted from a few chapters of Marx's writings on commodity exchange and production. In other words, many of the points made in the film are forced and performed by the promotoras. MAQUILAPOLIS is an ITvS production, which means that most of the story is scripted to fit a mold that is so often part of ITVS films. Still, the film has been made for a specific purpose and that purpose is to "give the promotoras opportunities to represent the film by bringing it and their stories to audiences around the world." Another unique and interesting method of producing the film is the collaboration between "filmmakers" and "subjects" in the film. The collaborative production transgresses traditional boundaries of filmmaking because the workers are agents who construct and visually tell their own stories in the film.

May 2 - For anyone interested in a screening in the New Jersey and NYC area, Kim's Video in New Jersey will host an 8:00pm screening of MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA this Saturday, May 6. Kim's Mediatronics is located at 88 Pavonia Avenue, Jersey City, NJ, and the person organizing the event is Jill Bartlett. The store's phone number is 201-798-8008 (for reservations due to limited seats).  See their webpage for directions.

May 1 - The weekend theatrical screenings in Boston went well. Thanks to everyone who attended the film and told their friends about it! And thanks to Kip for letting us stay in his apartment! Ashley and I exceeded our goal for the turnout and are confident that upcoming screenings will be even better since we are improving our marketing skills and learning how to contact people about the screenings. We expect to place the DVD online - temporarily - and will email everyone when we do so.

We are also excited about the upcoming Hartford theatrical screening on May 12. We're expecting another large turn-out, as we have been contacting organizations and groups about the screenings. Ashley will be present for the Q&As, and might have a few DVDs for sale.

Tonight we watched AMERICAN CANNIBAL, a reality-tv documentary about reality TV, at the Tribeca Film Festival. Most of the reviews either describe the film without explaining it, or rave about it. I'm not a film critic, okay? The documentary film seemed like an overextended, 90 minute extra for the DVD. I guess a better way to describe the film is that it's a long documentary about the attempt to make a reality TV show, with a lot of music. The first 40 minutes reveal middle aged partners - Gil Ripley and Dave Roberts - struggling to pitch a reality show about male virgins who live with porn models to almost every company in NYC and LA. In that sense the film is enlightening in that I had no idea that people spend so much of their life trying to convince people to pay for a reality TV show about male virgins surrounded by female porn stars. And that's Act I and II, until they finally convince Kevin Blatt to produce the reality show (Blatt is the person who released the Paris Hilton Sex video, whatever that means) who then comes up with another idea: to put people on an island and starve them to see if they eat each other. Fantastic idea! The third act of the film basically shows what went wrong, well, sort-of but not really. The filmmakers didn't actually film anything, since they were not allowed to film the making of the reality TV show or any of the staged stunts. So they placed title cards and text on a purple background to explain what happened. And then the film just ends with more music and a thousand credits.

Ashley and I also watched WALKING TO WERNER at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. WALKING... is a documentary about a young man who walks from Seattle to Los Angeles to meet the filmmaker Werner Herzog. Despite the seemingly banal title and the sentimental references a few times, the film is original, funny, engaging, and disturbing. A must see for doc lovers, and especially anyone interested in Herzog's movies! I think I laughed out loud every 8 to 10 minutes in this film, just before it made remarkable transitions into thoughtful scenes about living life without moralizing overtones.

Today marked our first official day of editing our new film, 712 ALVAR STREET. Our goal is to complete the film sometime in August/September, just in time to distribute the film during the fall. We'll also develop a new webpage soon, which will include clips, reports, and more original music by Matthew Dougherty and Bart Leus.

Happy Birthday Chandler! 

April 26 - I'm so far behind in posting everything that I've wanted to post and thanking everyone for their help with the Mardi Gras film... Life is too busy for two people who are trying to complete two more documentaries, distribute one in colleges, organizations, and theaters, and basically have a life while organizing for social justice and fair trade. Anyway, I'm not complaining; I'm just overwhelmed by the people who have helped, especially Deborah and Dale Smith, and everything that needs to be done.

The film will open this Friday for one week at Coolidge Corner in Boston. Both Ashley and I will be present for a Q&A during all screenings on Friday and Sat. Next, the film will open in downtown LA at the Sunset 5 Laemelle Theater for one week, and then make its way to the Victoria Theater in San Francisco. During and after the theatrical run I'll continue working on the book I'm trying to complete. The book will address issues central to the film and hopefully respond to the hundreds of questions that people have been asking during Q&A sessions. The book will also have a teacher's guide (not that teachers need guidance, but the purpose is to promote and apply fair trade while also reading and debating it).

There were so many people and organizations that helped with the MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA after-party. Brooklyn Brewery provided the beer for the Mardi Gras: Made in China after-party; a local wine store in Brooklyn called "The Green Grape" provided the wine; Kathy Jenkins-Ewa, MBA - owner of a local New Orleans restaurant called "Restaurant New Orleans" - made fresh red beans and rice for 100 people at the party (located in Brooklyn, NY - 747 Fulton Street, 718-596-6333); and Southern Maid Donuts based in Hammond, Lousiana shipped FIVE fresh and delicious Mardi Gras King Cakes overnight to the after-party for free!!! Michael Chance attended the film's Friday night premier and personally delivered the cakes. Here's an article from Hammond, LA. newspaper The Daily Star.

Hammond doughnut shop to supply king cakes for movie premier
 
The world premier of the documentary film MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA is scheduled for Friday at the Cinema Village in New York, and Southern Maid Donuts of Hammond will be providing the king cakes for the after-party bash, company owners said in a news release.

In early February, producer Ashley Sabin sent out a request asking for authentic Mardi Gras king cakes that will be the centerpiece of the crew's Mardi Gras party following the showing of the movie on opening night.

Tommy Chance, one of the owners of the Hammond doughnut shop, heard about the request. On Thursday afternoon, he will fire up the ovens at the Channell Shopping Center location and overnight four king cakes to the Big Apple.

Michael Chance, one of the other owners of Southern Maid Donuts, is now pastoring a Baptist church in the Greater New York City area and will personally deliver the king cakes, the release states.

The film, directed by David Redmon, and produced by Sabin, follows the "bead trail" from the world’s largest Mardi Gras bead factory in Fuzhou, China, to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, poignantly exposing the inequities of globalization. With unprecedented access to the factory and focusing upon four of its young, female workers, Redmon captures the day-to-day realities of life in the "New China," which offers a sharp contrast to the realities of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras itself.

April 25 - Just returned from an incredible last-minute weekend trip in Boston to promote the upcoming theatrical release of the Mardi Gras film at Coolidge Corner. It just so happened that the Independent Film Festival of Boston was also taking place (more about it tomorrow). This year I was asked to be a juror for the 18 documentaries in competition - it's a no-brainer. Getting asked to watch 18 documentaries, in addition to seeing more free films and meeting people, is like asking a child in Texas on a hot summer day if he wants ice-cream.

THIN won the Grand Jury Prize and AMERICAN BLACKOUT won the Jury Prize.

Now for other news: Next Monday I can FINALLY start working full-time on our new film titled 712 ALVAR STREET (about Ms. Pearl's attempt to house 14 people in her backyard, after Hurricane Katrina, while living in tents - more later). Tim (the editor) and I have been capturing footage since last December (mostly Tim). This Friday we will be done capturing all the footage and then we can move on to the editing phase! As the days roll forward we will be posting clips from the film on this webpage to give readers brief samples of what's in the film. Plus, we want to keep your interest in the upcoming films!

Some people have sent emails asking how many hits we're getting on the Mardi Gras Made in China webpage. Our webpage is attracting a small flow of daily traffic. The "numbers" tell me that between 350-500 (sometimes as high as 800) returning people view the webpage every day. Between 350-600 (and sometimes as high as 750) NEW people visit the Mardi Gras webpage every day (I'm sure one of them is my mom... "Hi mom! I'm eating well."). In other words, about 21,000 people visit it per month. The number is small, but it's pretty darn good for an independent, self-distributed documentary. There are other reasons to announce these numbers, which I will explain in the near future.

Second, if you're one of the many people requesting DVDs for MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA, please note that I will SOON place a temporary PURCHASE button on my webpage so you can order the film. It will be there for about three days and then I will remove it.

More later - time to finish capturing the footage!

April 20 - Here's a link to a video of an interview with Werner Herzog. During the interview a stranger shoots him with an air rifle.

April 15 - The Brooklyn Underground Film Festival starts April 19 and opens with MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE. The documentary film is making its New York premier and has already garnered international attention. Just a few months ago it won the highest award at IDFA (International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam). This year's crop of documentaries are ones that you don't want to miss! I can't repeat enough times the thorough devotion and love of moving images the staff at BUFF has for films. BUFF is a film festival committed to screening quality, artistic films instead of showing as many films as they can pack into the five day festival. One result is creating a space for conversation about the issues addressed in the films as well as meeting people in the large Brooklyn Lyceum where the films will screen. Try to get your tickets ahead of time and expect nothing but solid programming this year.

April 10 - Ashley and I just returned from 4 days at the Full Frame Documentary Festival where we were able to see about 4 documentary films a day. We decided last minute to take an overnight bus to Durham, getting there just in time to step off the bus and walk directly to the line to purchase tickets. My favorite documentary was IN THE PIT, which "chronicles the daily lives of the workers building a second deck to Mexico City's Periferico freeway with their hopes, dreams and struggles for survival highlighted against the backdrop of a Mexican legend that says whenever a bridge is built, the devil asks for one soul. Rulfo won awards at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Havana Film Festival as well as two Ariels (Mexico's Oscar equivalent) for best editing and best first work for "Del olvido al no me acuerdo"' (Indiewire). The film also chronicals the carnivalesque language used by the workers to insult each other in a friendly way. The filmmaker Rulfo never romanticizes the situation, yet he captures the essence of humor and dangers of building a monster of a bridge. While the bridge seems to be a least 15 miles long, Rulfo simply focuses on one tiny section where workers spend their lives building the bridge one piece at a time.

We also watched almost all the documentaries in the program devoted to Hurricane Katrina. My personal favorite was TIM'S ISLAND. The documentary filmmaker - Laszlo Fulop - had no intention of making the film. It started when he was invited to a "hurricane party" at a stranger's house (named Tim) in New Orleans the day before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. He brought one camera and two tapes to Tim's "compound" and simply began recording the experience as a home video. Once the water kept rising, however, Laszlo and 14 other people, 8 dogs, and 5 cats found themselves trapped  on the top floor of a building for 5 days. Laszlo was able to locate a boat and return to his flooded home where he found a few more tapes needed to document the next five days. He ended up shooting 20 hours, documenting how everyone survived the flood through the "gathering" of food and water, gasoline to power the generator (and batteries which allowed him to continue filming), and beer and wine. Other people in the group were able to rescue a few neighbors using a handmade raft and a small boat. The remaining footage is excellent and I don't want to spoil the film by saying what's in it, but be on the look out for it soon! The film is absolutely amazing. There is no webpage for the film yet, but as soon as it's available I'll post it on my webpage.

Don't forget about the upcoming film festivals: The Brooklyn Underground Film Festival begins soon. BUFF will be screening some incredible documentaries this year to compliment the excellent narratives. Likewise, the Independent Film Festival of Boston begins in a few weeks. IFFB will showcase over 20 documentaries! Just a few of my favorite include  ABDUCTION, AMERICAN BLACKOUT, ROMANTICO, SO MUCH, SO FAST, THIN, and THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT (which won the audience award this week at Full Frame).

March 28 - I am truly exhausted... fatigued and yet excited and ready to keep on going! MARDI GRAS did well over the weekend at Cinema Village and therefore will play an extra week. Hope you will attend the extra screenings! Thanks goes out to the following organizations: Rooftop Films, Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, Brooklyn Independent Film Series, Rainlake Productions, Human Rights Watch, and especially Antimart. Thanks to everyone who assisted with the emails and postcards: Becca, my mom, Westerly, Emily, Chloe, and Meghan. Thanks to Alex and Tim for creating the ad for the papers.

I just returned from an incredible two days at King's College in PA. The teachers, staff, and students who put together the three screenings and classroom discussions for MARDI GRAS were all amazingly prepared. I was also able to show footage from the new documentary (ALVAR STREET) to a large group of students and professors (around 70 people). The feedback was overwhelmingly supportive, inquisitive, and thoughtful. Thank you!

MARCH 18

Ashley, Becca, and I have been busy for the last 2 weeks passing out nearly 8,000 postcards for MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA. Tim and I are editing 712 ALVAR ST (in between passing out postcards and visiting colleges to screen the film). And Ms. Pearl's backyard is up and running again! She promises to send a picture soon (click here for her webpage).

MARCH 4

Okay, okay, okay ... So we didn't have time to post updates on how the film and Mardi Gras were unfolding. We spent most of our days in the hospital filming an unexpected  event,  in empty neighborhoods where a few local revelers dressed as fairies and danced to the Mississippi river, and in the backyard of Ms. Pearl's house where the resolution of 712 ALVAR STREET took place. We were also busy trying to keep up with David and Ms. Pearl chasing beads and dancing in the streets on Mardi Gras day.

Several people have emailed about the consumer version release of the MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA DVD. The film opens at Cinema Village March 24, then Coolidge Corner in Boston April 21, and a few other theaters shortly afterwards. The DVD will be available through this webpage as soon as possible. We're also working on a deal with a few distribution companies, but we think it's important that we maintain the right to sell our DVD on our webpage. 

Here's a picture taken by Ms. Pearl's husband - David - while Ashley and I were filming the Black Men of Labor's Second Line.

 

FEBRUARY 23

Mardi Gras is just around the corner, and Ashley and I are documenting the resolution for 712 ALVAR STREET. We'll be posting updates about the film and how the local neighborhoods are celebrating Carnival. In the meantime, here's a couple of pictures of Ms. Pearl from last year when she celebrated with the Society of St. Ann. More pictures coming soon!

FEBRUARY 16

Fantastic turn-out tonight at Chapel Hill! Even though the Tar-Heels basketball team was playing Georgia Tech at home, 80 people still found time to attend a screening of MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA. The lunch session with students and faculty consisted of conversations about supply chains and holding businesses accountable to living wages and fair trade. Many, many new ideas were exchanged, and the most breathful moments are those times when people are affirming fair labor practices in their own ways in local spaces. Examples include, organizing unions in conjunction with maids on campuses who clean students' dorms; pushing Aramark to recognize unions; or forming an alliance between Duke and UNC students and professors to hold businesses accountable for labor practices in overseas factories that produce the apparel for basketball, football, and just about any sporting events. It's life affirming to see so many active people responding to local and global issues in their spare time and in their own ways. At Moravian College, economic teachers work together to create theatrical plays and short films about similar issues. Indeed, it seems that people everywhere are working on labor and environmental issues in seemingly isolated corners, but in fact it is a re-birth of a worker-friendly movement that demands living wages and fair labor practices so that people can live a dignified life that actually provides the necessary elements to ensure basic needs. I'm excited to see the results of the hard-work in five years from now.

Interestingly enough, our next documentary film is about a young family who makes bras and fire hydrants in Mexico, and the U.S. company that owns the factory where the woman works (in Mexico) is called VF Corp. VF Corp  is located just down the highway from where my film screened tonight. Too bad someone from the company wasn't present to see the footage from their factory!

Also, if anyone is interested in volunteering their time in New Orleans for relief efforts, there's a person named Chris Rumbley who you can contact. His email addresses are rumbley@gmail.com  or  nonprofitcivilian@gmail.com

MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA also opened this week in Orlando at DMAC Theater. Here's a wonderful interview and recent reviews from the Orlando Weekly and the Orlando Sentinel. Also, the Boston Phoenix says, "Like Darwin’s Nightmare, Mardi Gras: Made in China takes a tiny aspect of globalization and makes a case about the new class warfare between corporations and individuals..."

FEBRUARY 14

TRIVIA #1: Guess what the most popular bead this year during the Mardi Gras celebration will be...  [click HERE to find out].

Tonight I arrived to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the film is screening tomorrow night. During our "Valentine's Day Dinner," Robin Visser, a professor at the college, and I were talking about diaries. The conversation suddenly reminded me of the diary that one of the teenage workers/persons in the film gave to me. She gave me permission to have it translated and reproduced to share with the public (even though most hand-written diaries are meant to remain private). On a side note, Entry #15 mentions that, "an American with a camera arrived today." It's interesting to read her diary and see how she interprets my presence in the factory. What interests me is how my presence changed their behaviors and therefore how they worked and presented themselves to the camera and me. For instance, Ga Hong Mei (in the film) is almost always wearing the same black jacket. Every time we spent time together, she wanted to "dress up" for the camera and the imagined audience. So yes, filmmakers always change the location of the place where they film. Anyway, here's the diary!


Entry 1, Feb.16

I have been thinking of writing diary for a long time, however, I am too lazy to do so. Since I will leave for work for a whole year, I hope that I can record all the events that happen this year. I wish for success.

I will start my work tomorrow. It’s my first time to leave home. I miss my home, mom and sister so much. However, I am also looking forward to my new life.
Will it be interesting?

Mom is packing for me and keeps talking to me. Finally I can go to sleep now. I wonder whether I can fall asleep tonight. I am so excited!

Entry 2

I cannot believe that I kept sleeping so late today. Chen Yu’s brother came over to pick Ling Xiaojun and I after the breakfast.

Not unexpectedly, I threw up three times because we changed buses three times. After arriving at the factory, we paid the deposit first and then got the accommodation done. Dad went back right after the lunch. I found that except Chen Yu and her relatives there were nobody from my home town. I felt so lonely.

I started working at 2 o’clock this afternoon. It’s not interesting at all. I kept working till 2 a.m. I feel like sleeping. I miss home so much that I want to cry.

Entry 3

It is a horrible experience to work in the factory. I wonder how time passes so slowly. 

Entry 4

Two more workers joined the factory today. There are 10 people in my dorm now. We are reading novels, chatting, listening to music every night. I feel happy
about that.

The 50 products I made yesterday were returned because they did not reach the standard. I am sad. Li Ying made her quota and the supervisor praised her for her good work. Then the supervisor told me to learn from Li Ying, but it is really hard for me to work here.

Entry 4

Everyday in the factory is the same without any changes. It’s quite boring. But I am getting accustomed to this kind of life day by day. I wonder how my parents are doing these days.

This factory is so unfair! All the boys get more money for making beads. It is so unfair! It is also unfair that we girls have to line up to buy our food, but the boys do not have to do so. I don’t know why the boys have so many advantages over us. I am very angry about it, but what can I do? I have to obey.

Entry 5

We keep talking and making jokes with each other during the work, but the supervisor tells us to stop talking. It’s none of his business. Why should he worry about us talking? 

Entry 6

Today after we ate dinner we found that someone had taken Liying’s bag of beads/pearls. She was very angry. We helped Liying work till 1 o’clock in the morning. I am exhausted.

Entry 7

We got our income today.  I earned 50 RMB ($6.25) this week. Qiu Bixian earned 30 RMB ($3.75) this week. I am very excited because it is my first time to earn money by myself. I did not realize the difficulty of earning money till now. I earned more than the other 9 girls in my dorm. I treated my friends with a dinner tonight to celebrate.

Entry 8

I asked how much Qiu Bixian earned for this month. She answered me calmly, “I only earned 80 RMB ($8.00), nothing to be happy about!” She did not understand at all.

Entry 9

I really miss my home.

Entry 10

The ambitious Liying worked even harder this month to earn more money. She gets up at 6:00 in the morning and works till 11:00 p.m. She asked us to accompany her because she is bored. I don’t want to work for such a long time, however, we all fear that we will be punished if we don’t keep up with her. I don’t feel like getting up that early in the morning. It is so cold!

Entry 11

Liu Jun came over later today and the supervisor entered the dorm. We were afraid of being punished by him. He told Liu Jun to leave the dorm.

Entry 12

When we were working this afternoon, the boss rushed to our table because we were talking. He yelled at us and warned us that we would be fired in one month if we did not behave. The other manager told us not to set a bad example for other workers.

Tonight Zhao Qin and I wanted to leave the factory to have fun, but  we cannot  get outside without permission from the boss. Zhao Qin tried to convince the gatekeeper to let us out, but he said “No,” so we went back to our dorm. I want to go out so much now.

Entry 13

Tonight we paid the guard some money to let us go out. We went shopping and Zhao Qin got a haircut. We went to clubs till 3 o’clock and then went to McDonald’s since we had nowhere else to go. A woman came over and asked whether we’d like to look for a hotel. We followed her to a place which was dirty and small. However, it was too cold outside to stay and we had to stay in this terrible place for the night. I am very tired today, but the experience is interesting. If my parents knew what I did today, they would blame me without question.

Entry 14

If I describe yesterday as the heaven, today turns out to be hell for us. As soon as we arrived at the factory, the boss approached us; he was very angry because we left the factory. We were fined 100 RMB ($12.5) and Zhao Qin was fired. All of us are terrified.

We took a picture with Zhao Qin before she left. We could not help crying when Zhao Qin left. We cried not only because we lost a good friend but also because we did not feel comfortable ever since we started working here. Zhang Suhong and Liu Xingmei came over to comfort us, however it made us feel even sadder.

When we entered the dinning hall, everybody looked at us. It was so embarrassing that I had to hide my face. I did so even when I went to the restroom. I felt shameful and I cried.

The supervisor told us to write an apology letter to the boss. I want to quit my job, but I can’t because I will not be paid.

Entry 15

An American with a camera arrived at our factory today. He is interviewing people in different workshops. We feel interesting about what he is doing. Everybody is talking about him; we cannot concentrate on our work.

Entry 16

It is Sunday and it is my first day off in 2 weeks. We all danced in our dorm today. I feel a little better after dancing.

Entry 17

It is tiring these days. We work all day and night and get little sleep. I don’t want to work here any more. It is very boring and everyday is the same. But if I were home now, I would feel much more bored. What do I do? I want to quit this job and do something adventurous.

Entry 18

Working in this factory makes me feel obsolete from the outside world. Li Ying says that she feels the same way I feel and that she is quitting at the end of the month. If she leaves, I will be lonely and by myself.

Entry 19

Li Ying sent her resignation letters to the boss today. She will leave the factory after 10 days.

Entry 20

Four more girls handed in their resignation letters today. I cannot believe they have decided to quit the job.

Entry 21

Today two more girls quit working here. Now only Xiaojun, Qiu Bixian and I are left. I don’t feel like working these days. I did not finish my quota last time and will be fined again.

Entry 22

I don’t feel like working. I don’t know what I am thinking about. My friends all assumed that I would quit and go with them. I told them that I would not leave, but they didn’t believe me. I will not quit because my best friend is here. I will stay with her until the Chinese New Year. I will not give up.

Entry 23

I feel like pulling the iron string. I have a good mood today. [NOTE: Iron string is the bead machine].

Entry 24

Deng Zhenxiang’s husband was killed by a car in an accident in front of the factory gate yesterday. She was heart broken and kept crying for the whole night.
We don’t know how to comfort her. Life is susceptible.

Entry 25

Deng Zhenxiang came over to say goodbye to us today. She got thinner all of a sudden. She still could not stop crying because her husband died. We cried
together with her. She has to bring up two children by herself from now on. How is this possible?

Entry 26

When I read the story called “The Old Man Who is Riding the Bicycle” today, I suddenly made up my mind to go back to school. I realized that if I were not
educated, I could do nothing but ride a bicycle and sell vegetables like the old man in the story.  I called my mom and told her my thoughts. She said that
it would be great if I went back to school next year. Will I go back to school next year?

FEBRUARY 8

First, congrats to STREET FIGHT! Marshall's gut-wrenching, superb, and stunning documentary was recently nominated for an Academy Award (best documentary). If you have not seen it, you should do so immediately. It's for sale on his webpage. It's cleary one of the best documentaries I've seen in a few years, right alongside DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE and MURDERBALL.

I just returned from screenings of MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA in Santa Barbara, Moravian College, and Princeton, and it feels like it's been forever since I've actually posted anything interesting on the webpage (do I ever post anything interesting???!!!). The last week has been incredibly fulfilling; heck, the last YEAR has been beyond fulfilling! It's only been one year since MARDI GRAS screened at Sundance and the film is just now slowly transitioning from crawling to walking.  Granted, Ashley and I are working our asses off to self-distribute the film, and even though it won't screen in Landmark, Angelika, or Regal theaters (maybe it will?), we nevertheless have been able to tap into an audience of people who actively show up to engage with the film (with Q&A's lasting as long as an hour and a half). We've screened the film at over 100 festivals, more than 100 colleges and universities, and numerous organizations, libraries, coffee shops, friends' apartments, and bookstores. It's finally opening theatrically in several cities in the United States (it opened theatrically today for one week in New Orleans and Orlando). Every day we get requests to screen the film (and actually get paid for it!) at locations where we never imagined people would want to see it!

Check-out what the most recent edition of the Monthly Review has to say about MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA.

Still, the hard, difficult work has paid off, AND we are trying to complete two more documentaries while distributing and promoting the MARDI GRAS film (which finally sold to the Sundance Channel in the United States and the Documentary Channel in Canada). We've had incredible support from many people - volunteers such as Daniel and Kelli; our families; Tim and Alex; and Deborah and Dale Smith. The support, combined with our dedication and a commitment to getting the film out in spaces that are usually invisible to theatrical distribution companies, has resulted in creating an audience of people who want to know about and see the film.

I think we've learned that a film won't go away until we put it away, and we decided a long time ago that we are not putting away our films! We are so excited about the next two films and eager to complete them, yet realize that the process of getting to final cut - rather than jumping to final cut - is what's important no matter how eager we are to complete them. Well, as I mentioned at the start of  this entry, I really have nothing interesting to write - just a bunch of meandering thoughts bundled with excitement and interest in waiting to see what's going to happen next!

Here's pictures of Ceci and Camillo, who are the central people in our next documentary film.

           



Here's a picture of Ashley and Tim working on our newest documentary, "712 ALVAR STREET" and a picture of the walking encylopedia-webmaster-DVD -and-poster-designer for MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA, Daniel Dunnam (www.wompedy.com)

               

JANUARY 16

Today's New York Times article on protests in China. The "hail to the dictator" scene (the talking black bear which chants, "Hail to the dictator!") in MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA was shot clandestinely in Dongguan.

Girl, 13, Dies as Police Battle Chinese Villagers

DECEMBER 27

The Sundance Film Festival is just around the corner and of course I'll have a new "must see" list for documentaries. The one film that I really want to see is called BLACK GOLD. Hopefully, I'll be able to interview the filmmakers Nick and Marc this week and post the article on my Newspage. I first met Marc in Cancun, Mexico during the World Trade Organization meetings, when I had traced the Mardi Gras beads to the city and interviewed delegates (which is an extra on my DVD release). Marc was there filming a similar project: he was following the commodity chain of coffee. It was amazing how our projects overlapped, even though we started filming in different countries.

Another documentary that I'm really looking forward to participating with (yes, I participate with films) is TV JUNKIE. It's Director, Michael Cain, is from Dallas, TX - just 45 minutes from Mansfield, TX where I grew up. Lately, I've noticed more and more filmmakers from the DFW area making their mark in independent film.

Michael Cain is also the director for the Deep Ellum Film Festival. I had a chance to speak with Michael on his cell phone on Christmas Eve, as he was driving in between Richardson and Garland, TX. The most unbelievable part of his film is that he, along with several UNT and SMU film students, culled through over 3,000 hours of footage and 5000 photographs (yes, three-thousand!). Michael explains that "the decisions mostly came down to the editor, two assistant editors, and myself. We went through all the material over the course of a few years, reviewing selects. Then we had 'brainstorm' sessions and eventually culled 250 hours of selects." This process resulted in a 107 minute documentary that Michael hopes will remain a "surprise" for everyone. "I think the less people know about the movie, the better. I don't read reviews of films that I see. I don't want to know what the story is - I want it to be a surprise. But I also think this movie could not have gotten made if it weren't for the team. And it especially wouldn't have been possible without the one man who documented his life, Rick Kirkham."

The "team" to which Michael refers all come from the DFW area. Interns, editors, volunteers, and producers. "All are in film school and  one works in LA. Two assistant editors have limited experience, one has a Masters in film,  and one a talented specialist in industrial work." When asked how the team functioned over the course of the year working on the same project, Michael replied, "Curiosity, good heart, and interacting with the subject. DFW is a place where you can have your own unique perspective. It's not an NYU or USC or UCLA. DFW filmmakers say, 'I've got something to say, I've got my own voice.' In fact, there are four films
from Texas this year in Sundance. And the director/producer of "Primer" and the Producer of "Napoleon Dynamite" are from DFW. I run the Deep Ellum Film Festival and it's impressive to see the films and meet the people who live in the area. They are remarkable. One fact that most people don't know is that the DFW area has the third largest group of film watchers in the United States." Hence, TV Junkie could not have been a more appropriate title from a more appropriate location. TV Junkie opens Saturday , Jan 21 at 8:30 PM in the Holiday Village Cinema II.

Michael Cain can be contacted at michael@def2.org

DECEMBER 24

It's Christmas Eve in New Orleans and the streets in the Bywater are empty, quite, and dark. Other than Ms. Pearl's one strand of lights inside her window, one really wouldn't know that it's Christmas. There's no music, no one in the streets, and very few decorations. I really have nothing to say... Just meandering thoughts here and there about the current situation at Ms. Pearl's place. Without giving away too much of the story, it's suffice to say that each person in the film now has an arc and resolution, the overall story has an arc, and now it's a matter of waiting for resolution in the overall story that has emerged over the last 3 months of staying at Ms. Pearl's place. The film we are making (ALVAR STREET) really doesn't address anything we've seen on national and private TV; it doesn't get into issues of what people went through during the hurricane; nor does it address the larger political circumstances of "the government." Instead, it follows the return of neighbors to one block of Alvar Street and Ms. Pearl's attempt to house homeless and displaced people in tents in her backyard during a time in which housing is impossible to obtain. The story has taken me in directions that I never expected and situations that I never want to encounter again. Yet, there is deep humor in certain scenes and striking situations of human destruction and ritual celebration in others.

DECEMBER 21

 

Well, it's 5:10am and I can't sleep. I've been up all night editing our second documentary titled INTIMIDAD while working on the extras for the MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA dvd. It amazes me how many places the Mardi Gras film has screened and how many more places it will screen. When does the documentary end? I heard an interview tonight with Jim Jarmusch (BROKEN FLOWERS) and he explained, or rationalized, that once he completes a film that he never watches it again; he simply leaves it alone and moves on. I guess his approach is possible because people are working for or with him; I can't see how it's possible to leave a film with the amount of work that goes into the distribution and promotion of it!

I'm also getting over a severe head cold that I caught while climbing snowy mountains in Serbia (see third picture above). I'm still astonished how beautiful the area is. While climbing and treading through the snow (first picture), I was complaining to the guide how bored I was, that I found the situation unpleasant because he didn't - and wouldn't - tell us how far we were going, how long it took to get there (almost three hours to get to the top), and rarely stopped for breaks, (typical American complaints, no?). After making it to the top (second picture) and days of reflecting, however, I can't wait to return to Serbia and meet the mountains again! They're simply stunning. Thank you, Marco!

Marco also set up two screenings of the Mardi Gras film to high-school students in Serbia (see pictures below). The funniest moment was when I noticed a young couple making out on the back row while the film was playing! What do you expect? They're 15 years old! You know you've made it big-time once people start making-out during the screening of your film... In two days I'll be back in New Orleans to continue filming ALVAR STREET.


High school screening        Young Serbian couple        High school screening
                                     making out during the film

DECEMBER 13

Dunya and Anna guiding us through Belgrade

Ashley doing her best to imitate Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream.

Dinner with a small group of friends who cooked a Serbian meal

Sold out screening of Mardi Gras: Made in China (it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary!)

Film festival poster

Anna (left) and Dunya (right)

Ashley and I are in Belgrade at the Belgrade International Free Zone Film Festival. Today is our fifth day here, and we leave next Sunday. MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA screened to a crowd of 350 people and will tour 16 more cities in Serbia starting tomorrow. Later during the week I hope to post pictures from the camera that our friends Daniel and Kelli gave to us.

Belgrade is both spectacular and grey, incredible and calm; it's filled with curious contradictions such as an eclectic blend of communist culture mixed with free-market capitalism. Discos, bookstores, open markets, vendors, coffee shops, and thousands of tiny stores are scattered throughout the city, each catering to specific lifestyles, wants, and needs. During the night, scores of twenty and thirty-something year-olds fill the open spaces of downtown Belgrade and eventually snake their way inside night clubs, bars, and parties. The architecture is influenced by an array of cultures and ethnic groups - too many to classify into a systematic structure. Kinoteka movie archive is also here, showing films by international film students as well as Yugoslavian films from the period of 1948 to 2002.

We simply had no idea how wonderful our experience would be at the festival and in the city. The Rex organization (which assisted in organizing the festival) set us up with two hosts - Anna and Dunya (see pics above) - who thoroughly guided us through the city. Filmmakers from England, Israel, the Phillipines, France, the U.S., and Sweden were all present. Tomorrow we are traveling to the border of Hungary and Serbia to screen MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA in a small theater in rural Serbia. More postings to come later...

Read Past News > DECEMBER 1 (2nd entry)

KAMP KATRINA

Rarely do I become involved in assisting the people who are part of the documentaries that Ashley and I make. With that said, Ms. Pearl is posting the following letter in order for people to assist her goal of housing people in tents located in her back yard. I am not endorsing her goal or her project, but simply documenting the process of her attempting to accomplish it as the workers in her backyard attempt to rebuild New Orleans - and their own lives - amidst the most intense confusion and erratic human behavior I've ever seen. Here is Ms. Pearl's message.

A tent community has been established in New Orleans. Join us if you don't drink alcohol, or please donate tents, bedding, or cooking items. If you have space for a tent, please consider hosting someone in your community. Feel free to contact us [504-947-5454]. The mailing address to send needed items is:

Ms. Pearl
712 Alvar Street
New Orleans, LA
70117

Here is a sample of items needed based on the "wish list" from the workers living in tents in Ms. Pearl's backyard.

work boots
white socks
pants (sizes 32/34)
roofing tools
carpenter tools
glasses to help me see (near sighted)
harmonica
guitar
a "blues" suit
art supplies

Thank you, Ms. Pearl

DECEMBER 1

This entry is based on careful reflection of Vincent Miller's book CONSUMING RELIGION (Although his book is framed within several Christian frameworks, I am not Christian, and, in fact, consider myself atheist. Still, I recommend his book for its rigorous critique of consumer ideology and its suggested alternatives ).

After a recent  screening at the Epcor Center in Alberta, Canada (after the screening of MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA), a woman asked a difficult question that many people always ask: what's an alternative? What can be done? Although I never take an overt position in the film, I've concluded that exploitation works in various ways and is complex, almost always having unintended consequences. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that alternatives don't exist. In fact, a thousand alternatives are possible, for example: directly democratic economies where workers have a say in their own labor rather than renting ourselves to an owner; the formation of independent and autonomous unions separate from the State; workers and owners collectively deciding salaries, health care, and the creativity and design that goes into the making of an object; an enforcement of labor and environmental laws and living wage laws in China and everywhere - which, by the way, are sometimes even better than the United States; regulations on capital flight in the overly developed countries and, alternatively, the investment of capital in locations other than special economic zones (education in rural regions, for instance, or investment in assisting workers to start their own businesses with the meager wages earned in the factories), and so on. There are as many alternatives as there are people.  A multitude of voices within a multitude of differences is both a solution and a simultaneous problem. Overall, however, I agree that that structural wealth and profit must be redistributed to benefit workers. This is because it is almost always the workers and their labor power that make other people wealthy.

A situation clearly evident to the above issues here in New Orleans at the moment is the large number of day laborers located on the corners of Canal Street in New Orleans who look for employment every day. None of them have health or dental insurance; none of them have stable employment, food, or a stable salary; none of them have secure housing. In other words, none of them have their basic physical or existential needs met. How is this situation any different than in China, or other parts of the world where migrants find themselves in similar situations? At most, today's migrants around the world are fragmented and carry their homes on their backs, waiting for temporary employment from temporary agencies amidst the shining buzz words of today's neoliberal free market economy: free-trade, shopping, outsourcing, migrant, sweatshop, globalization, subcontracting... Where are the lives contained in these seemingly meaningless concepts?

A simple goal of any film that Ashley and I make is to "raise consumer consciousness" which is an attempt to highlight how shopping and tourism are embedded in global structures of trade and the economy. For example, how we obtain products such as Mardi Gras beads, how we live, and how we work are all located within the global economy. The purpose of making MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA is to provide a visual map of how every day commodities are embedded in the global economy and how they shape or form our perspectives and shopping experiences in specific cultural, political, economic, and ethical ways.

MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA provides a visual map of the places and processes where formations of consumer subjectivity take place. Commodities are seen as having exchange value in the objects themselves, yet this point of view masks the conditions of production. The tendency to locate value in the object and in the monetary exchange of it is problematic because those who produced it, their working conditions, and the resources that go into the object are not factored into the concept of "exchange value." In short, these hidden costs are "abstracted" from their conditions of production, and instead it is advertising and marketing agents who manufacture seduction and desire for the object. After all, how many times will you ever see images of the workers in China making Mardi Gras beads?

In short, the seduction for a product negates the production of it. For instance, Mardi Gras beads take on a life of their own: they call out to us, they are associated with one of the greatest spectacles on earth, and they generate images of breasts and penises. Those images form and shape our desires and needs. Mardi Gras beads signify secret fun, entertainment, memories, nudity, and - when displayed properly - they let other people know you have something in common with them (such as when they are dangled from the rearview mirror).

This approach is problematic because the solution to this problem is placed in the individual whereas the analysis is structural. Hence, becoming socially aware of the origins of production becomes a problem because it is a way to discipline and control peoples' conduct, which is not my intent. Think about it: we consume so many items that we simply don't have the time or mental energy to consider their origins. Left to this alternative (that it's the individual's responsibility), people will feel overwhelmed and bombarded. One consequence is that people will feel even more alienated and experience burn out by asking too many questions and worrying about where their products come from. This mental collapse does not allow us to be agents of social change. Thus, another approach is needed - one that it embedded in structural change and the ability to empower people in everyday life.

Examples include making and using fiction and nonfiction films to recode objects in order to reveal injustice and exploitation; organizing groups of people to celebrate carnivals or festivals outside of Mardi Gras holiday and make your own beads, masks, drums, music, etc to exchange. Another option is to engage in the exchange of beads for nudity by making your own objects of exchange under your own creative terms. This expands autonomy and awareness of how objects are made as well as increases creativity.

Despite the limitations of "developing awareness," I'm still an advocate of critical thinking and self-reflection as well as cutting loose. Therefore, I'll offer the following limited suggestions, but only because people ask. Many of the suggestions were stimulated by reading Vincent Miller's book, CONSUMING RELIGION.

Developing awareness

Develop awareness of the origins of production and illustrate how marketing and advertising is part of the process that hides those origins. This challenge to de-commodifying products assists people in understanding their role and contribution to reproducing the disconnection between production and consumption, workers and consumers.

Labor, creativity, and production

Making products, growing and cooking food, creating music, meditating, walking, or doing yoga - or working with others to accomplish these and many more alternatives - are all simple ways to maximize individual and collective autonomy, learn creative new skills, and become involved with people (e.g., driving through the fast-food line alone vs cooking with neighbors or friends). "When people engage in their own production, they are better able to notice, value, and appreciate the labor that goes into the making of a product" (Vincent Miller, p. 184). This shift in perspective helps redefine the symbolic meaning of commodities. It's a way of transforming how we relate to things, thereby transforming everything around us and how we relate to th