“Blue Collar” (1978)
Contributed by Dese (IG: @anything4ayay)
“They pit the lifers against the new boy, the young against the old, the black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place” - Yaphet Kotto as John "Smokey" James
Length: 1 hr 35 mins
-
This movie contains:
Violence
Racial Slurs and examples of Racism
Drug and Alcohol use
Claustrophobic Situations
Sexually Explicit situations
Examples of Patriarchal Actions and Gaslighting
-
We are aware that people involved in the making of this movie such as Richard Pryor are known to have caused considerable harm to people in their proximity. We wish to be transparent with our knowledge that Richard Pryor committed emotional, physical, and sexual damage to women. As well as acknowledge that many others involved in this film may have caused harm without ever being publicly caught or held accountable for their racism, sexism, classism, and ableism. This is not a complete or total account of the harm caused by Richard Pryor or all the other people involved in this film. We offer what we know to give the viewer a more honest viewing experience and to account for the entertainment industry’s culture of allowing abusers in positions of power to continue their business without accountability or openness by the industry of the abuse they inflict.
About the film:
This movie is set in a midwestern Factory town in Michigan in the 70’s. It follows the 3 working-class main characters who are factory workers. It shows their lives and survival mechanisms in a capitalist-run system. A world where, as one of the main characters says, “credit is the only thing you can get free from the company” and the Tax Man comes for the workers but not owners.”
The movie shows the power of and the dangers to be found in collective bargaining and how individual workers are set against each other due to capitalism’s tried and true tactics of divide and conquer.
The 3 friends, after a rare moment among men of true emotional honesty, come up with a plan to strike back and find themselves in more of a quagmire than they ever asked. It will test their friendship, class solidarity, and integrity. It clearly, almost methodically shows many of the tools used by the capitalist class and their loyalists against the working class.
In this modern wave of union organizing sweeping the country, I think this movie does a good job of illustrating the pitfalls that may occur, as well as those created by & used by the capitalist system to keep us disempowered and fractionated. It shows the things modern organizers have overcome and continue to work on to empower and unite the people.
— Dese
“Blue Collar” (1978)
Written by Paul Schrader & Leonard Schrader
Directed by Paul Schrader1
Starring. . .
Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto
