Essay on Food Inc - Rhetorical Analysis

Words: 1343
Pages: 6

Rhetorical Analysis – Food Inc.

‘Food Inc’, is an informative, albeit slightly biased, documentary that attempts to expose the commercialisation and monopolisation of the greater food industry. The film attempts to show the unintended consequences resulting from this, and for the most part this technique is very effective; however there is an overreliance on pathos in lieu of facts and statistics at times.
‘Food Inc’ starts off with a camera moving slowly through supermarket shelves with menacing background music and a bass voiceover informing the audience that, ‘in the American supermarket, there are no such things as seasons.’ Tomatoes and fruits, we are told, are grown overseas while in season but still green, then gassed to
…show more content…
Since then we see how Kevin’s mother, Barbara, has made fighting the corporate food giants her mission in life, and witness her constant lobbying in Washington for more transparency about the processes that certain foods undergo before reaching the consumer. Despite her fortitude and determination, the filmmakers reveal that even Barbara has reservations about saying too much about the companies that in essence killed her son, in a none-too-subtle reminder of just how powerful the industry she is fighting is. This is not surprising given the wealth of the industry she is fighting and how ready to use it in the form of filing lawsuits they are, an example shown is where Oprah was sued by cattle producers for saying she would “never eat beef again”. We are also told about the plight of the farmers themselves, forced into borrowing more and more money to conform their farms to the demands of the corporations buying their livestock; culminating in a spiral of debt near impossible to surmount on marginal profits. Another farmer, who remains anonymously silhouetted in the style of a current affairs news piece, tells of how he was sued by the multinational soybean company Monsanto for saving his own seeds.
Monsanto seems to be a representative of the few corporations that control a large market share of their field, and is almost singled out, along with Tyson’s chicken, for the audience to examine