Review of Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005) by Tonypolito — 16 Oct 2010

Essentially an expose of working conditions in a small Chinese factory, as well as the mindset of its manager.

Fifteen year-old girls toil 12-to-14-hour shifts, six days a week, 51 weeks a year, for $62 a month in a dormitory/factory under a variety of oppressive rules (enforced by docking weeks of pay) to manufacture the beads tossed out at Mardi Gras - then eventually into the trash.

The amount of access the filmmakers obtained is impressive; even more impressive is the frankness, even pride, seen in the manager when explaining his Tayloristic and capitalistic management philosophies.

While the conditions portrayed are cruel indeed, the film still does not totally succeed in capturing the viewer's sympathy. The worker most closely studied admits she walked out on her own education and family support toward a medical degree - to instead go to work in this factory. The manager's living conditions are vastly superior to that of his workers, but highlighting that he owns a Pontiac Firebird and that his child has a lot of toys does not exactly paint him the robber-baron.

The film's most striking moments are when it exhibits the workers' constant reveling in the small joys of life amidst such squalor. When confronted with pictures and stories regarding how the beads are used, the factory fills with smiles, snickers and laughter, rather than the indignation the viewer might expect.

Nevertheless, when I trekked to WallyWorld at 4am this morning and passed by a display of colorful bundles of Mardi Gras beads, priced at $1.50 each, I stopped and stared and thought a few moments of these workers, sadly trapped in their endless cycle of misery and optimism - thought of them in just the way these filmmakers intended.