How Does Hamper (and Moore) Assert His Individuality?
Your thesis will be about Hamper (and maybe Moore).
For each, you must use Ben Hamper's Rivethead, either alone or in conversation with Michael Moore's Roger and Me.
Prompts
1. Individuality/Corporate Culture. Discuss the disconnect between large institutional structures (corporations, unions, government) and the needs of the individual. How does Hamper (and Moore) assert his individuality? How is this reflected in the style of their productions? Is freedom possible within these structures, for either author? How come others survive this process and he cannot?
2. Both Moore and Hamper are white males; as such, they fit the stereotype of the “American blue collar” worker. Using just Hamper's Rivethead, discuss how women, non-whites, and any “others” work in concert with the pervasive under-educated white men. How do markers of race, gender, and class effects this? How does Hamper's own abject failure to meet this standard of white masculinity reflect on either him or the standard itself?
3. Responsibility: In Roger and Me, one of the spokesmen to GM says (to paraphrase), “GM is not responsible for Flint's destruction; GM's function is to make cars and profits.” The men running GM in the 1980s were clearly incompetent, but does that make their refusal to keep the plants open immoral, as they are portrayed by Hamper and/or Moore? If so, is their critique of GM's disregard for the lives of their workers righteous? Or are their arguments based on flimsy ideas of entitlement? How does Hamper (and maybe Moore) address the issue of accountability on the personal, corporate, and civic levels?