Motor City Memories

When I think of the City of Detroit, I think of cars. The Motor City. And when I think of cars, sadly I think of the tragic documentary Roger & Me made in the late 80's by now notorious filmmaker Michael Moore.

In Roger & Me Michael Moore made an inventive, darkly comic, and prophetic documentary about his hometown of Flint, Michigan, where 30,000 individuals lost jobs in the mid 1980s due to plant closings by General Motors. Now, before you go saying... "Hey, Joe, that movie was about Flint, MI. And not about Detroit." Remember that in the film, director Moore tries unsuccessfully to contact Roger Smith at GM headquarters in Detroit, at the posh Grosse Point Yacht Club, and at the Detroit Athletic Club. And again in Detroit, Moore finally gets a chance to speak briefly to Roger Smith at the company Christmas party but by then the documentary has delivered its hard-hitting messages.

The gap between the rich and the poor is growing in the U.S. and the future seems bleak for working class folk. America remains addicted to the illusion of quick-fix solutions to deep-seated societal problems. And corporations are going to have to do a much better job helping the employees they displace in pursuit of the bottom line of profits. Our country hasn't changed that much over 25 years later, when other docs like The Corporation and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room are being made pointing to the continued corruption of today's corporate world.