Good Company: An Oxymoron?
There are few films which comment on how corporate values, trends and movement operate in the lives of individuals. It's difficult to show that type of interaction, despite its universality, because the ideas that push companies today are abstract and complex. Moreover, they generally impact individuals very obliquely. Two films which have done this well are Network and Wall Street, which have well developed characters showing how the corporate values have infiltrated them personally and also comment on the current corporate landscape.
Wall Street tackled the then emerging trend of buying and selling companies for parts, which made multimillionaires out of characters like T. Boone Pickens who bought compromised companies and sold off their hard assets like land and capital at a profit. It set off the 80's as the decade of greed. This film is almost a 180 from that. The buzzword in this one is synergy, a word considered so unintelligible to the masses that the director choose not to use it as the title. In fact, it's always accompanied by a hand gesture to show the strength of interlocking bonds.
It's hardly a new concept, even to our founding fathers who admonished, "United we stand, divided we fall." Now, it's all about alliances. Last night, the runner up on survivor outlined the strategy that got her there. She did no work for the tribe, was considered kind of mean and tacky by them, but, she ingratiated herself with two men she considered to be the strongest players, and, because they were indeed the strongest, and showed her loyalty, she got 100K. The same strategy is used by everyone from kids on the playground to directors in the pre-Enron boardroom. This is how it works among individuals... and now companies.
As the IPO market shrinks, more and more companies look to the larger, stronger ones for their liquidity. Even artists look to the big players and corporate patrons. As Shakespeare observed:
Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman: Why, as men do aland; the great ones eat up the little ones.
Pericles I1
The Trump figure In Good Company admonishes his followers to promote their brothers and sisters ( in companies owned by the same magnate) as though he were Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount, and, they revere him as if he were Jesus. All except Dennis Quaid, of course, who wonders aloud whether the new "country" he lives in is really as democratic as the head of it seems to think and whether the Emperor is wearing clothes.
Sound familiar? Every despot to ever rule a country felt he was loved by his subjects. This theme of the company as country was also integral to Network. Because these companies exist independently of any given country and are subject to few of their rules, I can see where megalomania could arise. Take a company like Microsoft (please); Bill Gates, who was never elected to anything, wields huge power that is beyond the limits of even the US Government, which has tried to reign it in with very limited success. Sure, we could all refuse to use Microsoft products, and I urge you all to do just that, but, it's become hard to avoid.
It's true, we do vote with our dollars. And in that sense, there is democracy, but some things, like gas, and now even computers, are so necessary, that our votes are about as meaningful as they are in elections, where we get to choose between two flavors of vanilla. Corporate alliances and cross-branding are as much about exclusion and divisiveness as they are about "synergy", just as religion and country have two faces. For every individual who is truly strengthened and elevated through those institutions, there are thousands who use them as crutches and excuses for exclusion.
For me, the biggest problem with the alliances, within and between conglomerates, is in media. ABC shows only interview B-listers on affiliated networks or Disney films, they tend to review more Disney films. Microsoft has NBC in its pocket. Anything that appears on these major news shows must be filtered through a huge corporate net before any exposure is possible, unless you murder your pregnant wife and dump her in the bay. They all run the same obscure stories and all avoid the same major news stories. It's scary.
While it's important to be aware of the fix in corporate America, to me, the interesting issues in the movies I'm discussing here are the ones that address how these larger social issues play out in our lives. I remember telling a fellow lawyer once that when I practiced corporate law I was encouraged to switch to litigation but I was afraid of what it would do to my personality. He said that some folks just aren't affected that way and I'm sure he included himself among them. I've never met anyone who sees himself as a corporate drone, going along with the party line, buying into it. We all think we're impervious. We all think we're master of our fate, captains of our own ship. That doesn't make it true, though.
Having been both inside and outside of the corporate/business world, I see more clearly the ways in which we buy in, even here in Silicon Valley, which seems so innovative and entrepreneurial. We buy in by thinking that success is the new car and prestige. We turn our attention away from the true experience of our life and toward the external measures of a person. We readily identify the idea coming out of a powerful mouth as good and that coming from a less powerful source as less good, Evaluating ideas based on the external power of the person presenting it shows a lack of independent thought, though most who do it think they are really making the decisions without bias.
Our implicit assumptions are also affected. The business buy-in has us believing that more you work, the better you are. A recent survey shows Americans spending very little time just enjoying their lives, their weekends are spent working or catching up on personal errands they have no time for during the week. The value is accomplishment, achievement... but what is really accomplished? People get so focused on the business goals that they lose touch with what they really want out of life. People have lost touch with themselves and implicitly see the business goals as their own personal goals.
Wall Street tackled the then emerging trend of buying and selling companies for parts, which made multimillionaires out of characters like T. Boone Pickens who bought compromised companies and sold off their hard assets like land and capital at a profit. It set off the 80's as the decade of greed. This film is almost a 180 from that. The buzzword in this one is synergy, a word considered so unintelligible to the masses that the director choose not to use it as the title. In fact, it's always accompanied by a hand gesture to show the strength of interlocking bonds.
It's hardly a new concept, even to our founding fathers who admonished, "United we stand, divided we fall." Now, it's all about alliances. Last night, the runner up on survivor outlined the strategy that got her there. She did no work for the tribe, was considered kind of mean and tacky by them, but, she ingratiated herself with two men she considered to be the strongest players, and, because they were indeed the strongest, and showed her loyalty, she got 100K. The same strategy is used by everyone from kids on the playground to directors in the pre-Enron boardroom. This is how it works among individuals... and now companies.
As the IPO market shrinks, more and more companies look to the larger, stronger ones for their liquidity. Even artists look to the big players and corporate patrons. As Shakespeare observed:
Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman: Why, as men do aland; the great ones eat up the little ones.
Pericles I1
The Trump figure In Good Company admonishes his followers to promote their brothers and sisters ( in companies owned by the same magnate) as though he were Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount, and, they revere him as if he were Jesus. All except Dennis Quaid, of course, who wonders aloud whether the new "country" he lives in is really as democratic as the head of it seems to think and whether the Emperor is wearing clothes.
Sound familiar? Every despot to ever rule a country felt he was loved by his subjects. This theme of the company as country was also integral to Network. Because these companies exist independently of any given country and are subject to few of their rules, I can see where megalomania could arise. Take a company like Microsoft (please); Bill Gates, who was never elected to anything, wields huge power that is beyond the limits of even the US Government, which has tried to reign it in with very limited success. Sure, we could all refuse to use Microsoft products, and I urge you all to do just that, but, it's become hard to avoid.
It's true, we do vote with our dollars. And in that sense, there is democracy, but some things, like gas, and now even computers, are so necessary, that our votes are about as meaningful as they are in elections, where we get to choose between two flavors of vanilla. Corporate alliances and cross-branding are as much about exclusion and divisiveness as they are about "synergy", just as religion and country have two faces. For every individual who is truly strengthened and elevated through those institutions, there are thousands who use them as crutches and excuses for exclusion.
For me, the biggest problem with the alliances, within and between conglomerates, is in media. ABC shows only interview B-listers on affiliated networks or Disney films, they tend to review more Disney films. Microsoft has NBC in its pocket. Anything that appears on these major news shows must be filtered through a huge corporate net before any exposure is possible, unless you murder your pregnant wife and dump her in the bay. They all run the same obscure stories and all avoid the same major news stories. It's scary.
While it's important to be aware of the fix in corporate America, to me, the interesting issues in the movies I'm discussing here are the ones that address how these larger social issues play out in our lives. I remember telling a fellow lawyer once that when I practiced corporate law I was encouraged to switch to litigation but I was afraid of what it would do to my personality. He said that some folks just aren't affected that way and I'm sure he included himself among them. I've never met anyone who sees himself as a corporate drone, going along with the party line, buying into it. We all think we're impervious. We all think we're master of our fate, captains of our own ship. That doesn't make it true, though.
Having been both inside and outside of the corporate/business world, I see more clearly the ways in which we buy in, even here in Silicon Valley, which seems so innovative and entrepreneurial. We buy in by thinking that success is the new car and prestige. We turn our attention away from the true experience of our life and toward the external measures of a person. We readily identify the idea coming out of a powerful mouth as good and that coming from a less powerful source as less good, Evaluating ideas based on the external power of the person presenting it shows a lack of independent thought, though most who do it think they are really making the decisions without bias.
Our implicit assumptions are also affected. The business buy-in has us believing that more you work, the better you are. A recent survey shows Americans spending very little time just enjoying their lives, their weekends are spent working or catching up on personal errands they have no time for during the week. The value is accomplishment, achievement... but what is really accomplished? People get so focused on the business goals that they lose touch with what they really want out of life. People have lost touch with themselves and implicitly see the business goals as their own personal goals.
posted by Intervision at 3:42 PM
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