Today I saw this absolutely brilliant video project, Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt. The videos, followed seamlessly by additional, more detailed information and pictures, follows the process of creating an ordinary T-Shirt from the very beginning, at the cotton farm, to the end when a customer has it in their hands. This project was done so well because it holds a lot of information and presents it in a beautiful way while keeping it short and concise.
I found that the video relates to our course in a few ways. Firstly, it is a perfect example of globalization. Just as it is said in the videos, there is a whole world behind one shirt. The creation starts in Wisconsin, where the seed is grown, moves to Texas, Mississippi, Columbia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Miami, and New York. Without all the people and machines that preform each task in each location, the t-shirt would not be made. Every single step is important and has a large impact on the lives of the people who do them. When talking about why they did this project, Planet Money’s David Kestenbaum said “Keynes’ idea was that there’s more to the markets than just numbers; there are people and emotions making decisions. And to the extent that we are finding the human element in the very dry subject of economics, it’s actually perfect for us.”
Recently I also saw this video, Detox: How People Power is Cleaning Up Fashion, which talks about the environmental concerns surrounding the textile industry. While it is about a different subject, it also shows how there is a whole world behind one t-shirt.
Watching both of these videos reminded me of the western perspective. They are both obviously targeted towards a western audience who buys the t-shirts, not the factory workers. Both the videos are primarily about educating the western audience. I can guess that a large majority of the people who buy these shirts do not know about all the nuances that go into creating it. While I did know generally about the whole process shown in the first video, there are many aspects, like how the cottonseeds are grown in a lab with a very efficient machine, which I had no idea was happening. I found the video to be very enlightening. I think that the way it was produced, the simplicity of it, and the additional information after each video segment, made it something that anyone could easily watch and understand. They didn’t use complex language and explained things well. I believe that this made it very accessible for a large audience.