Abstract
Sometimes the strongest messages are those symbolic and unspoken. Such is the premise behind The Shrimp, a documentary film by Keith Wilson. From the gripping opening scene focusing on a solitary shrimp frolicking in the water until ensnared in a trawler’s net to the very end where the audience is left asking “Where do we go from here?” The Shrimp launches the viewer on a journey that takes on important cultural, economic, environmental, and sociological meanings.
In a similar vein but on a less intense or grand scale as films such as Baraka (Fricke 2001) or Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio 1983), The Shrimp consists of a series of vignettes that tell a story by following the experience and significance of this small crustacean from its roots in Georgia’s shrimping waters to one’s plate at mealtime and beyond. Visually appealing and transmitting a message without dialogue or voiceover, The Shrimp leaves viewers on their own to absorb the imagery and decipher the multiple themes, meaning, and significance. In this regard the film challenges the audience to consider and disentangle the complexities behind what is often assumed to be a simple and innocent question: “Where does my food come from?”
Underlying this age-old question are broader cultural, economic, historical, and social considerations that speak to the impacts of the systems from which we derive our food needs. Although at first glance seemingly simple, to the critical eye The Shrimp steers one toward a multitude of issues denoting much greater meaning to the food we eat than simply what appears on our plates. In short, one is forced to confront the processes at work and the question of how everything is connected and ultimately consider the consequences of this.
A solitary shrimp is more than what it seems. In the film it symbolizes an entire industry on which whole communities and regions around the world are dependent. It insightfully touches on systems of production and the workers who harvest, process, package, distribute, market, and sell the commodity to consumers. Intertwined with this are environmental considerations and the ecological impacts associated with shrimping and the larger food system. Speaking to broader sustainability issues, The Shrimp pushes the audience to consider the overlapping of human social systems on natural ecosystems, be it increased demands on the natural world to feed us, encroachment on the natural world with expanded development for habitat or recreation, or the dependency on natural systems for human livelihoods.
The sustainability theme and its environmental, economic, and social components are interwoven throughout The Shrimp, and the biggest contribution of the film is its focus on this dynamic at multiple levels. A humorously poignant scene of fried shrimp being eaten by a lounge singer at her piano or the casual stroke of a golfer at play may not seem connected, but the film in its skillful imagery and storyline helps one map these links. Speaking to broader sustainability issues and environmental well-being in general, our shrimp is an important symbol of the ecological challenges the world faces.
The film is quite suitable for the undergraduate sociology classroom, though introductory students may find its subtleties and meaning challenging to grasp without proper framing and follow-up in its use. I would highly recommend carefully constructed questions available for such students beforehand to guide their viewing and to make connections to course readings certain for context. Although probably most suited for courses in environmental sociology and sustainability or ones that focus on the sociology of food and food systems specifically, the film’s message and themes could be adapted to a number of other courses including those examining culture, population, social change, social problems, visual sociology, or theory. Beyond the classroom there is also much potential for The Shrimp in engaging broader communities in its themes and furthermore having an interdisciplinary quality to it that will speak to individuals from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. Having traveled the film festival circuit at the South by Southwest Film Festival and the Black Maria Film Festival among others, The Shrimp is certain to spark enlightened discussions regarding topics such as food justice, food sourcing, and sustainability, fitting in nicely with activities surrounding Earth Day or World Food Day, for example.
In sum, I found The Shrimp to be quite engaging in a presentation that leaves much room for exploration and interpretation. It could prove to be a valuable exercise in critical thinking in the sociology classroom and in helping students develop their sociological imagination in a unique and challenging way. Documentary filmmakers too often tell us what we are to take from their films with a message being blared loud and clear. This is not the case with The Shrimp. We are instead forced to consider the film from a variety of fronts and cultivate the meaning within it for ourselves. It is in doing this that its significance rings true.