55: The Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement

Brought to you by...

Business Insider

History, Pop Culture, Business, Brands, Household Name, Society & Culture, Business Insider, Brought To You By..., Culture

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When two employees at Polaroid discovered their company’s technology was being used by the South African government to help enforce apartheid, they protested and called for an international boycott of their employer until it withdrew from that country. It was one of the first anti-apartheid protests against a major U.S. corporation and the beginning of the broader divestment movement that followed. Polaroid’s leadership responded with steps it thought could help Black South Africans, and its efforts pose a question we still grapple with today: What responsibility do corporations have to promote social justice and human rights around the world?

For more on Polaroid, South Africa and the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement: https://bit.ly/btyb-polaroid

Subscribe to Business Insider: read.bi/podcast

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is a fantastic ad.
0:07.0	Everything about it kills me. It's for this affordable Polaroid camera sold in the 1960s.
0:18.0	It's in black and white and you see these young, good looking white kids dancing on the beach,
0:26.0	jumping in the ocean and especially flirting. And that O so subtle name.
0:32.0	The Swinger is a very simple instant camera that has a strap you hook around your wrist.
0:37.0	When you want to take a picture, you swing it up. Click and presto a few minutes later.
0:41.0	There you have a black and white snapshot. Polaroid had a real knack for creating great ads
0:46.0	for its instant cameras. The technology the company created and completely owned,
0:51.0	like this one from the 1970s.
0:53.0	When you can see a picture developing before your eyes,
0:56.0	blooming in minutes into a photograph of this real life itself,
1:00.0	it makes you eager to grab hold of the world.
1:03.0	Yes, my friends, that is Master Thespian, star of stage and screen, Lawrence Olivier.
1:09.0	Press the button. And it is. This is simplest app.
1:14.0	Selling the heck out of Polaroid's latest revolutionary and really cool looking new instant camera,
1:19.0	the SX70. That gee sound of instant photos, the white border on the bottom,
1:25.0	the image slowly emerging before your eyes. This is it, the start of it all.
1:30.0	So then, what about this other ad from Polaroid in 1970 that ran in newspapers?
1:35.0	It wasn't to sell on instant camera. Instead, the headline read,
1:39.0	what is Polaroid doing in South Africa?
1:44.0	From business insider, this is brought to you by.
1:47.0	Brands you can trust.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -1646 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Business Insider, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Business Insider and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.