Mirando's Corporation's Exploitation towards Okja in Okja (2017)

Abstract

There are many types of exploitation ,such as nature exploitation, animal exploitation, etc. According to (Tomaskovic-Devey & Avent-Holt, 2019), "Exploitation is a situation when one party uses their position to their advantage at the expense of the other." This research analyzes Okja (2017), which focuses primarily on the acts of cruelty that may occur in actual animal farms and how Mirando Corporation exploits Okja and even Mija. The researcher mostly discusses animal abuse and cruelty, human exploitation of animals, the motive of why they do this animal exploitation and the social lessons that may be learned from this film. The researcher used Greg Garrad's idea of Ecocriticism and the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare to carry out this study. The researcher uses screenshots and Scripts from Okja (2017) as data sources. The result of this study found that Mirando Corporation violated 4 points in 5 freedom of animal welfare, such as making the animal feel pain, making the animal feel discomfort, making the animal fear and stress, and lastly, making the animal cannot behave as usual. All these types of violations were carried out because Lucy Mirando wanted to solve world hunger and make her company name to be liked by people and media, from the most hated Agro chemical company in the world to the most likeable miracle pig company. But they need to tell white lies to the people and media about their super pig and just want to make a profit from GM animals.

Keywords: Animal Exploitation, Ecocriticism, Genetic Modified Animal, Animal Farm Cruelty