The Documentary "King Corn"

I watched the movie King Corn for this project. It is a low budget documentary about two recent college graduates who move to Iowa in order to grow one acre of corn and then follow it into the food market. This film was impressive in many ways. Since the film was pretty low budget, they had to improvise their animations and some of their research. For example, when they are explaining the history of the corn farm and the impact government subsidies have had on the corn industry, they use children's toys in stop-action animation. Also, they were not given access to the corn syrup manufacturing plants and, so, figured out how to make high fructose corn syrup in their kitchen from the internet, which was a particularly hilarious and impressive segment. They are also very consistent in their endeavor. It is their desire to be hands-on about every aspect of growing their acre of corn and their inability to do that in some cases is highlighted and reflected on. They are also very committed to their project. There is something refreshing about watching a documentary made on a low budget and with the very transparent imprint of the filmmakers on it. Because of the low budget quality and the relationships and connection the filmmakers make and the obvious commitment they have, the documentary has an authentic feel to it and gets the message across. There are fewer moments of bias in this film because you really sense that they are learning things as they go along, right along with the viewer. They present information rather than make commentary. It doesn't really have a "position" other than "there is stuff in your food that you don't know about and you are often eating something without realizing it" and, yes, it convinced me hugely.

The primary point of this documentary was to educate the viewer about what is in their food. Further, though, they wanted the viewer to also become aware of how what they eat is not just, literally, who and what you are, but also reflects your position on how the government treats farmers and the food industry, whether we are aware of it or not. Overall, I think that a documentary like this helps people understand that there really is more to the ordinary things in our daily lives than we think.

In order to help students think about ways to create their own documentaries or be able to critique the ones around them, I would probably show some docs side-by-side. For example, I would show this one along with Food, Inc, because that one was clearly higher budget and had more of an agenda. I would ask students to try and identify those things on their own and point out instances of bias in one and not in the other, etc. I would do the same thing with a Michael Moore doc, for example, alongside other, lower-budget productions about the same issues. I would eventually ask students to create their own doc about something relevant and important to them.