I watched the Robert Greenwald documentary Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price last night. The only other film of his that I have seen is Outfoxed, which I basically liked.
This one, on the other hand, exemplified one of my least favorite aspects of the Michael Moore brand of liberal activist film-making, namely, making a movie that is guaranteed to appeal to people who already agree with you, but is easily dismissed by not only those who actively disagree with you, but also by those who are on the fence.
I basically agree with most of what Greenwald has to say about Walmart: they underpay their employees, they wipe out small businesses, they drive down prices so that their suppliers have to use sweatshops to compete, and engage in a myriad of other business practices that range from questionable to criminal. To top it off, their 100,000+ square-foot superstores spawn vast tracks of ex-urban retail sprawl.
While it is true that this documentary makes all of those points, it does not make them well. Facts and statistics are thrown out one after the other, completely free of contex: Walmart costs tax-payers $14 bajillion dollars a year because so many of its workers are on welfare; 500 violent attacks occurred in Walmart parking lots last year; Walmart paid $1.5 million dollars in fines to the EPA for violating environmental law in 2004. All of these statements may be true, but since the film provides no context, it is unclear whether they are meaningful. Maybe many of Walmart’s employees are on welfare because of low wages and meager health benefits, but Greenwald ignore the question of what these workers’ situations would be if there were no Walmart, nor does he provide any indication of how this statistic relates to the fact that Walmart is the world’s largest employer. Likewise, the amount of violence that takes place in Walmart’s parking lots seems high, but one wonder if it occurs at a higher rate than in other retailers’ parking lots. Is Walmart really an environmental miscreant, or are is it getting singled out because of its size?
I may know the answers to such questions, or be able to guess at them, but as I mentioned above, I already agree with what Greenwald is trying to say. A less sympathetic viewer might be more inclined to dismiss his entire argument because of his seemingly specious and poorly supported claims.
In other cases, Greenwald engages in outright trickery and deception. At one point, the documentary states that there are currently X million square feet of abandoned Walmart stores in the US. It then goes on to state that this is the equivalent of 28,000 classrooms. However, as space does not equal money, this is a severely misleading false comparison.
Throughout the film, Greenwald talks to former Walmart employees, both floor “associates” and corporate management. While the stories they tell may be compelling, they are not particularly convincing, amounting to little more than the opinions of isolated individuals. The documentary provides exactly zero evidence that these people aren’t simply disgruntled workers trying to defame their former employer.
Again, my point in all of this is not that anything that Greenwald is saying is necessarily wrong. My point is that by making his claims in the way he does, he not only makes them easy to dismiss, he makes it harder for anyone who comes after him to make the same claims.