This past weekend I decided that I
wanted to watch a documentary, so I logged onto my Netflix account and randomly
came across The Botany of Desire.
When I started the documentary (based on the book of the same name by Michael
Pollan), I had no idea that it would be so relevant to everything we talk about
in our class. In The Botany of Desire,
Michael Pollan attempts to explain the symbiotic relationship between plants
and humans that exists today, and he focuses on four plants: apples, tulips,
marijuana, and potatoes. Pollan argues that humans’ relationships with each one
of these plants represents specific human desires: apples represent our desire
for sweetness, tulips our desire for beauty, marijuana our desire for
intoxication and pleasure, and potatoes our desire for control. In each part of
the documentary, Pollan explains how intricately linked humans and each plant
have become, and he provides a general overview of each of the different
industries. Considering that our class is about food, the sections about apples
and potatoes are of most interest to discuss here.
Pollan’s in depth look at apples
and potatoes included discussions of many themes that we have discussed in
class. He describes apples’ representation of our desire for sweetness, and the
film argues that our desire for sweetness is hard-wired. Upon hearing these
facts, I couldn’t help but think of Mintz and his history of sugar. Similarly,
Pollan’s section on potatoes stresses the human desire for control of our own
survival, and this week’s readings came to mind. Like Professor Ries, Pollan
highlights the amazing ability of potatoes to provide an immense amount of food
and nutrition in a small amount of land, and he discuses how potatoes have
played an important part of human survival throughout history.
Perhaps the most interesting and
relevant aspect of The Botany of Desire
is Pollan’s discussion of recent science and technology and their applications
within the apple, tulip, marijuana and potato industries. Pollan highlights the
fact that both industrial apple and potato growing involve a significant amount
of genetic modification of plants, and only because of this modification have
these industries been able to keep up with current levels of consumption and
constant desire for satisfaction through food.
While this film might over-glorify
and perhaps over-simplify some of the industries that it explores, I think that
it is definitely worthwhile for everyone to watch, as it is very closely
related to our class in many ways. I’ve included the link to the pbs website
about the documentary as well as a link to the trailer.
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