The Big One
The Big One (Directed by Michael Moore, 1998) Featuring Garrison Keillor, Phil Knight, Michael Moore, Rick Nielsen, Studs Terkel, this humorous and heart‑breaking documentary by corporation foe Michael Moore tells the story of his 47‑city book promotion tour for Downsize This. In his journey across America Moore meets workers underpaid or fired by companies making record profits. Moore stops at a cafe in Iowa to talk with a woman who has to work two jobs to provide her family with food‑‑and, as a result, seldom sees them. In West Des Moines, Moore attends a secret meeting of Borders employees upset that they are required to pay for an HMO plan that has no Des Moines doctors listed.
When Moore revisits Borders at the film's end, the employees have unionized. An example of realism about Iowa, Moore’s film shows that some Iowans can't afford food in a state that produces so much of it. In a typical Moore polemic, he also suggests that Iowans, like other Americans, suffer from the effects of U.S. corporate greed.
Marty Knepper Morningside College knepper@morningside.edu & John Shelton Lawrence Morningside College j.shelton.1@gmail.com
