In a world of capitalism and consumer culture, the wealth gap is excessively wide. This divide has emerged as a huge problem in the United States and is reflected in art and film.
Painter Sari Shryack creates art representing the overlap between consumerism and poverty. Sari is a painter with a talent for capturing childhood nostalgia. Sometimes, her paintings are still lifes, depicting cluttered desks, candy, gaming consoles, and street signs. Other times, she paints people in their element: kids at play on green lawns, women basking in the sun, grannies with sunscreen-slicked noses. Shryack has an incredible gift for capturing life’s moments through painting, creating works that use neon colors and playful compositions that remind viewers of their own lives. She explains that despite her parents’ financial strife, she remembers her childhood fondly. The bright spots of childhood are often filled with small plastic trinkets, high fructose corn syrup, and sticky lip gloss kits. Through her work, she draws from the human experience of whimsical, unabashed joy children experience through play, make-believe, and sweet treats.
Sari Shryack’s piece titled Dollar Store Barbie Aisle shows metal shelves and perforated hardboards lined with off-brand dolls and bins of plastic-wrapped toys. This painting reflects her childhood; she says it reminds her of the scene from The Florida Project where the mother “[splurges] on cheap items because […] money for them is fleeting and unreliable.” The artist says that she has had a really hard time processing her childhood, and that most depictions of poverty have it all wrong. Rather than the grey, colorless existence frequently ascribed to those below the poverty line, Shryack says that her childhood was “saturated with plastic and pink” and dollar store dolls. Something that really stuck with me was Shryack’s idea that in America, impoverished people could “have both so much and so little at the same time.” These small pleasures are placeholders pushed by consumerism as a solution to people who cannot make ends meet. As a child, these dolls fill a void; these temporary pleasures act as a bandaid to a gaping wound, an empty gesture.
Sari pointedly refers to A24’s The Florida Project. This film is a compelling social commentary on the class system in America and the children within it. It’s set in Kissimmee, Florida, with a vibrant and engaging backdrop that further emphasizes the film’s over-saturated color grading. The overall vibrancy and tacky, touristy charm of International Drive starkly contrast the character’s hardships, primarily Moonee, a 6-year-old raised by her single mother, Halley. They reside in a hotel called The Magic Castle Inn near DisneyWorld, painted to look like a purple palace that acts as low-income housing. The cinematography conveys the events from a kid’s perspective, capturing a childlike sense of wonder and adventure as the kids make do with what they have, unaware of their impoverishment. Moonee’s innocence shields her from much of her life’s dysfunction, including her mother’s criminal activities. In one scene, Moonee is playing with her colorful plastic toys in a bubble bath, laughing and carefree, while her mother is entertaining a man in the next room to keep food on the table. The children beg for money for ice cream and explore abandoned houses. They are also consistently left unsupervised and get into trouble, which might sound like a kid’s dream, but it borders on neglect.
Moonee is shown to be an unreliable narrator. When she is about to be ripped away from her mother, the only stability she has ever known, she is sent into a state of panic, causing her and her best friend to run away and into Disney World. She has such a vivid imagination and sense of wonder that she finds escapism even during her darkest moments. The film encompasses how a child’s brain can rationalize, adapt, and ignore. The Florida Project is a class commentary that doesn’t shy away from showing the victims of a capitalist system.
Capitalism promotes a constant cycle of material goods consumerism, which can be incredibly harmful in the long term. It is environmentally damaging due to its lack of sustainability, contributing to a culture of single-use plastic and items that are destined to be added to the landfill.
America has been engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ for a while. This phrase describes the socio-economic concept of companies competing and doing anything they can to cut costs and create the cheapest products possible. Rather than creating high-quality, expensive products that only the top 1% of people can afford, they aim to sell to the masses at an incredibly low price point. The price decrease comes at the cost of cutting corners, cheaply made materials, lower standards, and overall diminished quality.
While it may seem like dollar stores are creating affordable goods for people in poverty, the reality is that they can have a negative impact on the community. Due to their cheap goods and services, dollar stores can take away business from regular grocery stores, resulting in food deserts. These food deserts disproportionately affect minorities, creating a reliance on substandard food with low nutritional content. The market requires quantity over quality, pumping more money into the mass production of plastic trinkets.
Overall, these media depictions of poverty show how capitalism affects those in poverty and bring awareness to its impact on children.