Right-wing conservatives say anti-corporate fiction is politically dangerous as it could cause audiences to question the validity and morality of capitalism entirely. If there wasn’t a potential profit in them, they wouldn’t be made. The fact that ruthless corporations produce anti-corporate material shows that these narratives are popular with a mass audience. In the cartoon Futurama, 30th-century Earth is dominated by the ruthless Momcorp, whose misanthropic chief executive pretends to be a caring, maternal figure in public. Such whitewashing is regularly parodied in pop culture. Google, a corporation that has been implicated in dystopian forms of mass surveillance, once had “ Don’t be evil” as its company motto. Image controlĬorporations are aware of their villainous reputations, which they try to defuse through public relations and image management. It is the ultimate commodification of dissent. It allows us to rail against the evil of big business in our fictional stories, while denying us the ability to meaningfully challenge them in real life. Capitalism, it would seem, can market anything, including anti-corporate sentiment. Evil corporations are a staple of global entertainment culture, from Japan to South Africa.īut their existence reveals an internal contradiction, as these fictional narratives are themselves corporate products, funded and distributed by media conglomerates. Others have privatised air ( Total Recall), massacred indigenous aliens on distant planets ( Avatar), and caused zombie outbreaks ( The Resident Evil series) and nuclear war ( Terminator 2: Judgment Day) while performing terrible experiments on their workforce ( Sorry To Bother You). Related article:įictional evil corporations have attempted to pacify audiences with mind control ( Videodrome) and released dangerous, untested weapons on an unsuspecting public ( Robocop). They are represented by elitist villains based in sinister, brutalist office towers and headquarters, plotting to destroy the world for a quick buck. Films, television shows, novels, comic books and video games regularly portray corporations as Evil, Incorporated. An oligarch such as Bill Gates, who turned Microsoft into a global monopoly by ruthlessly crushing smaller competitors, has rebranded himself as a benign philanthropist.īut pop culture noticeably holds out on such positive depictions. The news media often portray corporations in relatively positive terms, praising the entrepreneurial prowess of chief executives and the social responsibility apparently shown by big business. What’s truly disturbing, though, is that organisational evil is not motivated by personal hatred but the clinical pursuit of profit, causing incalculable catastrophe and misery for other social classes. In modern times, fossil fuel companies are implicated in causing the climate crisis while they sponsor a global warming denial propaganda campaign. IBM and Siemens helped organise and build Nazi death camps, and many multinationals traded with the apartheid regime in South Africa. They subvert democracy, engage in price gouging, dispossess entire communities, privatise common goods and mislead the public about the harms posed by their products. This ethos of money above all else has implicated corporations in some of the worst criminal acts of modern times. Corporations exist for a singular purpose: the relentless pursuit of profit. This scene highlights a dark truth about the fundamental amorality of capitalist enterprise. From Burn’s perspective, his war profiteering was simply good business a client wanted a product, and he made sure his company provided. But when it’s pointed out that Schindler is a heroic figure, unlike the despicable and despotic Burns, he does not see the profound difference between them. He is inspired by the film Schindler’s List, which shows how German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved his Jewish workers from the Nazis. In the episode A Star in Burns, he tries to soften his public image by sponsoring a “slick, Hollywood-style picture to gloss over my evil rise to power”. Burns is undoubtedly evil, and yet he wants the public to respect his business acumen. Since Mr Burns’ introduction in 1989, the robber baron – as Matthew Josephson dubbed such corporate moguls – has abused his staff, defrauded the government and initiated disastrous schemes, including attempting to block out the sun to drive energy consumption for his nuclear power plant. Montgomery Burns, a recurring villain in animated series The Simpsons, is the embodiment of corporate greed. Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window).Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window).Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window).Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window).
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