American Dream

Kopple's Academy Award-winning documentary American Dream exposes the human cost of Reaganomics. The movie focuses on the mid-1980s labor strike at Hormel's Austin, Minnesota meat packing plant (Hormel produces Spam, Dinty Moore, Old Smokehouse, ham, bacon and a variety of other meat products). The movie shows the very poignant and personal effects of Reagan-era economic policies and the destructive results of calculated union-busting strategies on real human beings caught in the upheaval. Kopple's a good one to tackle such an enormous undertaking. Her 1976 documentary Harlan County, USA also won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Documentary and established Kopple as one of the top documentary filmmakers of our time. “In this country we're allowed to strike yet we're not allowed to win. People can be permanently replaced,” noted Kopple last year while discussing American Dream prior to its special Austin screening at the Third Coast Women's International Film Festival. That statement is the crux of what happened in the Hormel strike. The workers who went out on strike quickly found themselves not only at odds with the plant management but also with their international union reps who withheld solid support. Thus, in addition to fighting a large national corporation, the striking workers had to buck their union hierarchy that favored a conciliatory contract and new local leadership. Hundreds of workers at other Hormel plants who honored the Minnesota picket also found themselves permanently out of work. After nearly half a year, the strike was, in effect, shut down when Hormel announced that the plant had achieved a full work capacity by hiring back a few dozen of its original workers and hundreds of outside replacements. What American Dream wants to learn is: how did this human tragedy happen -- at Hormel of all places, a company with a reputation for progressivism? Decades ago it was among the first to furnish its workers with guaranteed annual wages and profit-sharing plans. Generations of family members worked at the plant, taking pride in their products and their relationship to the manufacturing process. The answer the movie presents is Reaganomics, the “as long as I've got mine, the hell with everyone else” attitude prevalent in the 1980s. Before American Dream starts sounding like a dry labor history or doctrinaire propaganda, let me rush to say that nothing could be further from the truth. What this film does best is reveal the heartbreaking positions in which these workers and their families find themselves. There are wrenching scenes of brother literally pit against brother when faced with the decision of whether or not to cross the picket line. The looks of utter disbelief and frustration are unforgettable as picketing workers and their families watch neighbors and out-of-work outsiders cross their pre-dawn blockade. Evident everywhere is the torment of workers who must choose whether to stand for principles in which they believe or to resume earning a living at the only job they know. The loss of self-esteem that accompanies the inability to provide for one's family is an anguish that American Dream makes palpable. The dexterity with which Kopple juggles all these strands is astonishing. Shot over the course of approximately five years, the sheer amount of footage gathered would daunt anyone but a truly focused filmmaker. What American Dream sets out to do is not present a chronological labor history but rather, reveal the patterns governing that history. It functions as a primer on organizing, a study of community values and a portrait of Americans abruptly severed from their dreams. There is no happy ending in American Dream. Despite the fact that in 1991 Kopple's documentary won both an Oscar and the top three awards at the Sundance Film Festival, it, shamefully, took close to another full year before the film was picked up by a distributor for theatrical distribution. The strikers at the Austin, Minnesota, plant may have lost the battle, but such neglect almost ensures that we, as a society, will lose the war. On a local note, I would be remiss not to add that any participation in our own unsanctioned Spamarama events (past or future) ought to be unthinkable without having seen this movie first.