This episode should never have made it past the editor's desk. It was basically an hour-long drive-by smear of IKEA lacking even the most elementary coherence and substantiation.
First, the flow - there was none. It felt like something you would have made in high school media studies class. Essentially, the episode consisted of four or five mini-stories, with minimal to no logical segues between them.
The only one of these that was actually interesting was the one about illegal forest harvesting in Romania. They should have just built the whole episode around that.
Instead, we are treated to boring, amateurish and at times absurd sequences that answered none of the questions that a genuinely curious, unbiased viewer might have.
IKEA's history and corporate affairs... I found out the founder was a Nazi supporter as a teenager during the war, and later was apologetic about it - seemingly sincerely, according to the person interviewed. Did this tie into the story at all - no, but I guess the producer's thinking was "everyone hates Nazis, am I right?" Then we learned that the founder became very wealthy and the company was finding ways to pay fewer taxes. My next question was how they compare to the Apples and Amazons of the world - but, of course, that would require actual analysis and research and so was not on offer. So, the conclusion from this part of the film was that IKEA is a multinational corporation for good and ill. Ok, thanks.
Now for IKEA's suppliers' harvesting practices. The Romania story was interesting, but my takeaway was that IKEA stopped using them after the problems came to light. I guess maybe they should have done that earlier? In any case, this story should have been developed much farther. What does sound forest management look like? How does harvesting differentially impact old-growth forests vs. Newer ones? What are some examples of companies that are doing it right? What is the impact of disposable furniture in landfills? Barely a peep on any of this. In the end I was left with the impression that they were beating up on IKEA for what they acknowledged was an industry-wide issue... I guess the big dog is always the easiest target.
Now, what about the American furniture manufacturer in the Appalachians that is under strain because of low-cost foreign competition? Predictably, the story here was US-good, foreigners-bad. This segment was completely absurd for anyone who pauses to think for half a minute. First of all, huge swathes of Appalachian old-growth forests were historically clear cut by these same US companies - no irony there, right? Second, their more expensive furniture presumably requires better quality wood (like mature hardwood), which has a greater environmental impact, no? Third, does anyone think these small-time companies are more likely to make big payouts to families when their furniture causes injuries, like IKEA did? Good luck with that! Of course, the film didn't even mention any of these things, but really, you have to think the viewer is a total dope to expect them not to pause to think about the irony here. The only part that could have been interesting - the reference to dumping (selling below cost to gain market share) - was brought up once in passing and never revisited. They did show some scenes of that US factory and... I'm not an expert on manufacturing, but boy did that workplace look under-mechanized and inefficient. Maybe if you have barely modernized in 40 years there are other causes of your misfortune than foreign competitors that sell people products they actually want, at a price they can afford. But I digress.
We also learned about the Consumer Products Safety Commission - whose purpose is to advance consumer safety by coordinating recalls and developing safety standards. This was interspersed with a lot of commentary from concerned parents about how voluntary standards are a joke, because they are not mandatory. Ok, but the point of voluntary standards is generally to be a marker of standardized quality, so that consumers have an informed choice between higher quality, more expensive products and cheaper, flimsier ones. I don't think most of us who buy IKEA are under any illusion as to whether we are buying a Cadillac. The really interesting angle here would have been to explore the analysis that CPSC does - what are the factors and considerations they analyze when deciding whether a product like this has an acceptable or unacceptable level of risk? Like - where do you draw the line between "coffee is hot" and "ban lead paint?" In fairness, I can see why CPSC only provided talking heads for this segment, because at this point, the episode had devolved into a total farce.
The most outrageous segment was saved for the climax, as we were provided inside access to a gathering of parents whose toddlers had tragically died due to tippy dressers. Everyone can sympathize with this tragedy, but holy cow was this piece a joke. No mention of the parents taking any responsibility at all for their kids' safety, not even in the slightest. Like, if you have a toddler and choose to put cheap, tippy furniture in their room and leave them alone, maybe at the very least anchor the thing to the wall *like it says to do in the instructions.* Ironically, the film tried to implicate IKEA by showing an old manual which said to affix your furniture to the wall to prevent it from tipping - this was wound into some inchoate conspiracy talk of how "they knew all along" whereas what it really showed was that the parents knew all along. Naturally, the parents deserve compassion but when they craft the whole story around blaming someone else, take no personal responsibility, get paid an eight-figure settlement in cash, and then STILL go on TV to fume about IKEA's negligence - well, it's all a bit too much. To top it all off, there's a scene where the parents are all together mourning their children and agitating for justice - then in the background you can see they're having a nice dinner party with the wine flowing. Not really their fault... but the director really wasn't thinking here, was he? Oh, and then there's that dad who was quiet the whole time but finally chimes in to say that IKEA's voluntary Malm dresser recall is not advertised sufficiently, because what about all of the people out there who don't watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspapers, watch YouTube or have social media - how will they find out?? Good grief.
In conclusion, this episode gets 2/10 only because of the 5 minutes of semi-suspenseful footage in the Carpathian Mountains.
The real irony is that coming into the episode, I was open-minded to learn about whether IKEA really was responsible for these falling dressers, but despite the producer's best efforts to show they were, the amateurish execution of the episode and shameless bias led me to conclude that if this is all there is to it, there's probably not much to it. So, I guess they accomplished something.
First, the flow - there was none. It felt like something you would have made in high school media studies class. Essentially, the episode consisted of four or five mini-stories, with minimal to no logical segues between them.
The only one of these that was actually interesting was the one about illegal forest harvesting in Romania. They should have just built the whole episode around that.
Instead, we are treated to boring, amateurish and at times absurd sequences that answered none of the questions that a genuinely curious, unbiased viewer might have.
IKEA's history and corporate affairs... I found out the founder was a Nazi supporter as a teenager during the war, and later was apologetic about it - seemingly sincerely, according to the person interviewed. Did this tie into the story at all - no, but I guess the producer's thinking was "everyone hates Nazis, am I right?" Then we learned that the founder became very wealthy and the company was finding ways to pay fewer taxes. My next question was how they compare to the Apples and Amazons of the world - but, of course, that would require actual analysis and research and so was not on offer. So, the conclusion from this part of the film was that IKEA is a multinational corporation for good and ill. Ok, thanks.
Now for IKEA's suppliers' harvesting practices. The Romania story was interesting, but my takeaway was that IKEA stopped using them after the problems came to light. I guess maybe they should have done that earlier? In any case, this story should have been developed much farther. What does sound forest management look like? How does harvesting differentially impact old-growth forests vs. Newer ones? What are some examples of companies that are doing it right? What is the impact of disposable furniture in landfills? Barely a peep on any of this. In the end I was left with the impression that they were beating up on IKEA for what they acknowledged was an industry-wide issue... I guess the big dog is always the easiest target.
Now, what about the American furniture manufacturer in the Appalachians that is under strain because of low-cost foreign competition? Predictably, the story here was US-good, foreigners-bad. This segment was completely absurd for anyone who pauses to think for half a minute. First of all, huge swathes of Appalachian old-growth forests were historically clear cut by these same US companies - no irony there, right? Second, their more expensive furniture presumably requires better quality wood (like mature hardwood), which has a greater environmental impact, no? Third, does anyone think these small-time companies are more likely to make big payouts to families when their furniture causes injuries, like IKEA did? Good luck with that! Of course, the film didn't even mention any of these things, but really, you have to think the viewer is a total dope to expect them not to pause to think about the irony here. The only part that could have been interesting - the reference to dumping (selling below cost to gain market share) - was brought up once in passing and never revisited. They did show some scenes of that US factory and... I'm not an expert on manufacturing, but boy did that workplace look under-mechanized and inefficient. Maybe if you have barely modernized in 40 years there are other causes of your misfortune than foreign competitors that sell people products they actually want, at a price they can afford. But I digress.
We also learned about the Consumer Products Safety Commission - whose purpose is to advance consumer safety by coordinating recalls and developing safety standards. This was interspersed with a lot of commentary from concerned parents about how voluntary standards are a joke, because they are not mandatory. Ok, but the point of voluntary standards is generally to be a marker of standardized quality, so that consumers have an informed choice between higher quality, more expensive products and cheaper, flimsier ones. I don't think most of us who buy IKEA are under any illusion as to whether we are buying a Cadillac. The really interesting angle here would have been to explore the analysis that CPSC does - what are the factors and considerations they analyze when deciding whether a product like this has an acceptable or unacceptable level of risk? Like - where do you draw the line between "coffee is hot" and "ban lead paint?" In fairness, I can see why CPSC only provided talking heads for this segment, because at this point, the episode had devolved into a total farce.
The most outrageous segment was saved for the climax, as we were provided inside access to a gathering of parents whose toddlers had tragically died due to tippy dressers. Everyone can sympathize with this tragedy, but holy cow was this piece a joke. No mention of the parents taking any responsibility at all for their kids' safety, not even in the slightest. Like, if you have a toddler and choose to put cheap, tippy furniture in their room and leave them alone, maybe at the very least anchor the thing to the wall *like it says to do in the instructions.* Ironically, the film tried to implicate IKEA by showing an old manual which said to affix your furniture to the wall to prevent it from tipping - this was wound into some inchoate conspiracy talk of how "they knew all along" whereas what it really showed was that the parents knew all along. Naturally, the parents deserve compassion but when they craft the whole story around blaming someone else, take no personal responsibility, get paid an eight-figure settlement in cash, and then STILL go on TV to fume about IKEA's negligence - well, it's all a bit too much. To top it all off, there's a scene where the parents are all together mourning their children and agitating for justice - then in the background you can see they're having a nice dinner party with the wine flowing. Not really their fault... but the director really wasn't thinking here, was he? Oh, and then there's that dad who was quiet the whole time but finally chimes in to say that IKEA's voluntary Malm dresser recall is not advertised sufficiently, because what about all of the people out there who don't watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspapers, watch YouTube or have social media - how will they find out?? Good grief.
In conclusion, this episode gets 2/10 only because of the 5 minutes of semi-suspenseful footage in the Carpathian Mountains.
The real irony is that coming into the episode, I was open-minded to learn about whether IKEA really was responsible for these falling dressers, but despite the producer's best efforts to show they were, the amateurish execution of the episode and shameless bias led me to conclude that if this is all there is to it, there's probably not much to it. So, I guess they accomplished something.
