The Story of Stuff, Essay Example

In the movie “The Story of Stuff” the host introduces the issue of consumer consumption and explores the social, economic, and environmental costs of our wasteful way of life. Using simple animation and direct language, the film explores the issue from several perspectives. First is the cycle of resource exploitation and consumer capitalism; second is the way that marketing and advertising is used to convince the American public to engage in this cycle of wasteful consumption; and third is a brief discussion about how we can collectively move beyond this destructive cycle to a more sustainable way of life. By presenting the subject matter in such a direct and jargon-free manner, the film manages to frame the issues easy in a way that is easy to understand and makes a compelling case that our current way of life cannot be sustained indefinitely.

The first set of issues addressed by the host comprises the bulk of the film’s total running time. In this section the focus is on the so-called “materials economy,” which is generally framed as having five discrete components. The first of these is “extraction,” the second is “production,” the third is “distribution,” the fourth is “consumption,” and the fifth is “disposal.” None of these components of the materials economy is in dispute in the film; what is in dispute is whether these five components tell the whole story. The basic premise of this section of the film is that none of the functions of these five components take place in a vacuum, and that each component comes with hidden costs because of what the film describes as “limitations” placed on it by practical, if often overlooked, considerations.

While the system of the materials economy is often looked at as “linear,” moving in a smooth, straight line from resource extraction to disposal, the limitations of finite resources mean that there are restraints and costs that are hidden when presented in a simple diagram. As the host notes, one of the missing pieces of the diagram is the effect that the materials economy cycle has on people. The exploitation of resources needed to feed the materials economy has left the United States with poisoned and unusable groundwater, polluted air, and rampant deforestation. As the materials economy has become global, much of the resource exploitation has simply been moved overseas to third world countries, rendering the immediate destruction invisible to first-world consumers. The film cites a number of grim statistics in this section, including the fact that the U.S has 5% of the world’s population while using 30% of the world’s resources; the Amazon loses 2000 trees every minute; and 75% of fisheries are exploited beyond capacity. Although such figures only paint a small part of the picture, they help to make the film’s point quite clear.

The production stage of the system is no less destructive; as the film describes it, most production is, at its core, the blending of natural resources with toxic chemicals. In support of this point the host provides a list of product, from computers to bed pillows, that contain such “toxics.” Moreover, the use of toxic chemicals in consumer products means that human breast milk is loaded with the byproducts of such use, rendering breastfeeding as potentially dangerous instead of being entirely healthy. There are other human costs in the production cycle, as third-world economies force millions of people into cities and factories to produce our goods, thereby exposing more and more people to toxic chemicals and striping their lands of resources.

The materials economy has hidden costs for consumers as well, not just in terms of exposure to toxins, but also in the economic system that demands people work more hours for lower pay to buy more products. Wages are pushed down and benefits are taken away, while people spend more and more time working (often at more than one job) while devoting their limited leisure time to shopping and watching television. The advertising and marketing on television and other media is intended to promote more and more consumption, which leads to the next main section of the film.

After exploring the basic issues involved in the materials economy, the film discusses how the current situation came to be. As the host notes, things were not always this way. It was in the aftermath of the post-World War II economy that consumer consumption exploded, and this was not something that happened by accident. As the host explains, planned obsolescence (where goods are designed to have limited lifespans and then be discarded) and perceived obsolescence (where trends and fashions dictate that people replace perfectly good products with new products) is at the heart of the materials economy cycle. This purposeful obsolescence is driven by media and marketing, and was established in the 1950s as a means of spurring the economy. It is no accident, notes the host, that the rate at which Americans report being generally happy hs declined in direct proportion to the rate at which consumer consumption has grown.

The concluding section of the film is the briefest, and it is here that the host makes an appeal for the idea of moving away from consumption to a more sustainable economic system. The film recaps several of its main points, and reminds viewers that the current system was not something that simply happened naturally; it is something that was planned and directed by governments, corporations, and individuals. In much the same way, argues the host, we as a society can -and must- forge a new path to a sustainable, viable future. The film does not offer a detailed plan for achieving this, but within the framework of its brief running time it does make a convincing case for the idea that developing such a plan is the key to the future of life on this planet.

References

YouTube,. (2007). Story of Stuff (2007, Official Version). Retrieved 10 December 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM