“Alienated
Labor” by Foucault defines the experiences of laborers who are ostracized from
society due to their socioeconomic status in many ways. One way this alienation
occurs is through the lack of access for workers to the products they are
creating. This element of alienation can be seen in Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory in the candy itself. Candy is a luxury item that is not necessary for
life. The Oommpa Loompas did not have access to candy or chocolate when they
were in their native land. They were brought to the factory to work to create
this candy that they previously did not have access to. Their alienation is
personified in the fact that they do not have an ability to acquire what they
create daily at their work.
Another
way that workers are ostracized is through their inability for creativity in
their work. The Oommpa Loompas do not have input into the things that they
create in the factory. In one scene, Willy Wonka is speaking to an Oommpa
Loompa in a therapy session in which he is asking for advice for new recipes.
The Oommpa Loompa stays quiet which can represent his loss of creativity and imagination.
The inability to be creative and to imagine is soul crushing. Everyone seeks
passion in their work but when you do not have a passion, you are working out of
necessity, you lose your ability to be imaginative and creative. This inability
to express your soul and create is only able to be sustained for a short period
of time but will eventually dull the essence of who you are and your
aspirations for future development.
One
more way that laborers are alienated from society is through the idea of
identity in work. Our society is obsessed with identity; it also defines
identity through our work. This idea is expressed in the Oompa Loompas working
in the factory. Their identity has become working in the factory. You do not
see them do anything other than work. Another way this is expressed is through
Willy Wonka’s identity. Wonka’s identity consists of the chocolate factory. No
one in society sees anything deeper but as we can see throughout the movie,
there is something deeper with the flashbacks to his childhood. The ultimate
realization that the antagonist experiences is that he is propagating and
becoming the very thing that he has worked so hard to eliminate. This epiphany
is visualized in the point when one of his workers shows him that his emotions
are expressed through the candy which is why the candy is so bad. This leads
him to accepting Charlie and his family into the factory which shows Wonka as a more human character (which, hopefully, will allow the Oompa Loompas to become
individuals outside of work).
I really like how you brought Wonka's identity into the post! I think it's super important that his lack of identity played into the world around him. Like Marx says, the work sucks you in, and you become part of what you are making. You can't distinguish yourself from your reality and the actual world around you. For Willy Wonka, that's exactly what it was. He was too hooked on being the creator of his chocolate factor that he didn't realize how much he didn't care for the children he let in through his contest.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, after watching that film as a kid, I felt that Willy Wonka was a lot more humanistic when he accepted Charlie than I had previously viewed him!
Brianna, I absolutely love your post! I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well and looked at it in a completely different way. The Oompa Loompas are extremely interesting characters that are easy to overlook but you are completely right that they are distant from their work in the movie. They come from a distant place and are confined to the walls of the factory. One thing that is interesting about Wonka's factory is that, while it is very magical and interesting, it is still just a factory. There is definitely room for a loss of creativity and separation from the worker and his or her product as Foucault describes.
ReplyDeleteI have never looked at this movie philosophically until now, so I have never noticed how the oompa loompas are a perfect example of Marx's idea of the alienation of labor. One thing that makes human life so human, is our ability to find greater meaning in everything, especially our hobbies or tasks. The simplest task such as chopping down trees can be so base, but for somebody that is their escape from reality. When the idea of the being someone's escape and now they are forced to do it for someone else's benefit, then it loses our meaning to that person.
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