This week you will view The Insider which is a harsh indictment of corporate America. More specifically, the film calls to account the tobacco industry and its ongoing efforts to build and maintain its customer base through addiction. Recently, several class action suits have been filed against the fast food industry alleging that addiction to its products is a major cause of obesity—a condition which is growing exponentially in American society. For the next class, you are to stage a mock trial inspired by the insights gained through The Insider but focusing on a fictional (i.e., you make it up based on extant suits) class action suit focused on fast food addiction and the industry giants most obviously connected, e.g. McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc. Your setting will be a courtroom and characters could include plaintiffs, relatives of persons who died from complications of obesity, industry experts, corporate officials, whistleblower employees, managers of local franchises, medical experts for both sides, ad agency executives/copywriters/graphic artists, etc. You get the picture. You have complete freedom to create the cast of characters but consider testimony from a reasonably wide range of characters. This assignment will require some online consultation, some group work, prep of witnesses, order of case and battle plans for plaintiffs and defendants. And yes, you will need your own Clarence Darrow and F. Lee Bailey. You will be given 30 minutes at the start of the next class to finalize any last minute prep. Consider that the heart of this trial will be the capacity for experts to prove their premise of addiction or not and liability and intentionality on the part of the defendants. There is the emotional piece of the trial and there are the numbers. They make the story. Does the invisible hand reach for a Big Mac? This is a chance to be inventive and demonstrate some fundamental economic principles in a proactive manner. Use the list as a way of organizing the effort because it will not happen if you show up at class to organize. Each person will be evaluated on how well s/he performs her/his role - and certainly every person has a role. (By perform, we do not mean acting as much as content and persuasiveness of argument and/or information.) For example, those who are witnesses for the plaintiff have been “schooled” by the plaintiff's attorneys and your testimony should reflect this schooling.

Please make notes on the subtle ways in which Russell Crowe captures the character of Dr. Jeffrey Wigand. We will work on the analysis of acting style and technique as a filmic device during the following week.

For some mini-leads on class action suit/s, see:
http://www.new-nutrition.com/newspage/221102e.htm
http://www.power-of-attorneys.com/july_se1.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0604-01.htm