Sociological Themes In Roger And Me By Michael Moore

The documentary, Roger and Me, directed, produced, and starred Michael Moore was about his journey to explain what happened to General Motors in Flint, Michigan. The film includes interviews from different people living in Flint that were affected by the closing of the factories and businessmen of General Motors. Moore also shows how Roger Smith, the CEO of General Motors, wouldn’t want to speak about the issue in Flint and how his choices were affected the daily lives of so many families that helped establish his company. Throughout this documentary there were many sociological themes and concepts present. Some include: social class, deviance, and the conflict paradigm.
The idea of social class is very prominent throughout the entire movie. …show more content…
When Michael was interviewing the boss at the Flint GM factory Michael asked how he felt about closing the factory, the boss simply said he would “lay off as many people as necessary in order to make more money.” The boss didn’t have to think twice about this, and he would do it over and over again, even if it was in a place like Flint which helped establish General Motors. This conflict of firing people made General Motors more money; which was then viewed as having more power over the people. The idea that he would do it again without hesitation shows their need for power no matter who gets hurt in the …show more content…
I feel like they shouldn’t have shut down the factory because it was where they established their roots and changed history. The people working there were one of many generations in their own families that had careers there, since it was Flint’s biggest industry. If anything, I feel like the factory should have been converted into a museum about General Motor’s upbringing, and how important Flint was into creating GM. This would have created jobs which the factory workers could have taken. Especially people who have had multiple generations in their family work for General Motors since they were one of the many whom helped shape the company and would proudly represent what General Motors represented. I also feel like Roger Smith was too much of a businessman. He was laying off so many people that were dedicated to the company just to make a little bit more money. I believe he was the main reason for the crash of Flint, Michigan, since he was supporting the town for so many years and then decided to take away the factory. Overall, I felt like the film gave a good perspective of different sociological perspectives like social classes, deviance, and the conflict paradigm in a real world setting and opened people’s eyes to what really occurred in Flint,