I am concerned that Charlie was singled out to be our “hero” in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie’s main qualification is that he is poor. I know that people child worship is a popular theme in stories but is being poor really a virtue? Running a large factory requires business and acumen and good organizational skills. Willy Wonka made some decisive labor moves by recruiting the Oompa Loompas.
From what we know about Charlie, he has a very poor family background to succeed in business. His father not only works in a toothpaste factory but managed to stagnate at the level of toothpaste cap screwy. He is an able-bodies white male. Something is terribly wrong there and his bosses are probably picking up on it. The family is pitifully poor because of this and seems to be unable to make good life choices to save their lives. We can’t really blame the current generation though, both sets of grandparents are horrible example and just lay around in bed all day sucking the life out of the current generations. Charlie demonstrates his own irresponsibility tainted by a culture of poverty by running out and buying a chocolate bar as soon as he got any money at all. I am pleased that it worked out for him and he got a golden ticket but his behavior is akin to people running out and buying lottery tickets as soon as the welfare checks come in.
Most disturbing however, is Charlie’s lack of charisma. The boy simply has no personality. His shtick is being the “nice boy” and we all know that nice guys lose the girl and finish last. Running a chocolate factory like that requires huge vision, grand imagination, and cutthroat business skills. Charlie has none of that.
I think the smart choice would have been to choose Veruca Salt to run the factory. She comes from a family in the food business and has been exposed to large-scale management. Most importantly, she is a nasty little bitch and could deal with any Oompa Loompa insurrections. I also think she would have good vision for new products unlike Charlie who would probably just watch the existing markets slowly decay.
Willy Wonka was not looking for a high-powered and highly competent manager. He was looking for someone nice, who he could trust to look afte the Oompa Loompas. Veruca would have sacked half of them, and made the rest work twice as hard for half the money. That’s the business world for you, and Willy Wonka wanted no part of that.
A lot of the natural choices for “good” management are not only based on those qualities that would succeed, but also those qualities shared by those in power, whether that social evolution was random or adaptive.
So, Willy Wonka chose Charlie because he was more like he thought himself to be than the others, a lot like a lot of people make their hiring decisions, whether or not they are good ones.
(For a cheap example, not hiring women or minorities might not be an objectively wise decision but occurs/ed nonetheless.)
Veruca would have been a terrible manager, since she was only interested seeing the world revolve around her. Thus, she would have chosen to manufacture awful-tasting candy if she liked it, even if sales were zero. Her only interest would be to get whatever she wanted, and she’d soon run the place into the ground.
Violet Beauregard would only make gum. Other candy would be neglected, and the company would be a takeover target by Wrigley.
Augustus Gloop would try to eat the entire output of the factory.
Mike Teavee would be too busy watching television to properly manage the factory.
Charlie, OTOH, believed that hard work was necessary to survive. He’d be the only one willing to put the effort into it to keep it going.
No, Charlie’s main qualification was that he was honest. He was chosen because he was the only kid who wouldn’t sell the gobstopper. If he hadn’t returned the gobstopper, he would have been rejected, poor or not. In fact, he already had been rejected.
If Wonka called all these kids into the boardroom à la Trump, Charlie would shine. He’d be the only one of the lot not to interrupt, contradict, insult, and backstab.
Of course, the boardroom’s conference table would have to be made out of chocolate, George and Carolyn would be Oompa-Loompas, and Wonka wouldn’t wear a combover pompadour.
Except that wasn’t the decisive labor move you are painting it. Wonka didn’t recruit them because they were cheaper, he recruited them because his normal human employees were selling his secrets. He had already closed down the factory and had apparently given up on the candy-making business.
Wonka didn’t become the best because of his business acumen, it was because he loved chocolate and candy. Charlie also loved chocolate and candy but in a pure, honest way - not just in a sick, gluttonous way like Augustus Gloop does. In other words, he had a true appreciation for the candy and didn’t just want to shove whatever sweet thing was at hand into his nasty maw.
What was Willy Wonka going to do then if Charlie didn’t have an impulse control problem and buy another candy bar? Would he just keep running factory tours, sell the place to Hershey’s, or just never retire?
It seems odd that Willy Wonka wanted to “retire” anyway. What else was he going to do? He doesn’t seem like he plays golf or likes to lay around on the beach. I assume that he would keep some cash for himself.
Revisionist poppycock. Ignore the false propaganda: Charlie was never put to such a base test.
I am reminded of a Senegalese* proverb: Bow your head modestly when passing, and you will harvest many bananas.
Charlie was chosen because he exhibited the key traits of a proper Victorian youth: he was honest, he was respectful to his elders, he was kind, he was quiet, he wasn’t greedy, etc. Wonka chose him because the book is a quintessential Victorian children’s book (never mind the century in which it was written), rewarding Victorian virtues.
Daniel
I think it was Senegalese–it was some African country.
Which, of course, is a classic litterary technique to make the reader idenitify with the main character. The fewer characteristics, the easier for kids to “be” Charlie. You’d want to roam around in the chocolate yourself, right?
This didn’t transfer too well to the silver screen, however.
Or maybe he’d partner with Charlie, let Charlie run the candy-making operation, move his family in, etc.
-then-
Mike could then focus on the high tech, eventually landing some fat aerospace contracts.
The first chocolate bar was a present from his family, and the one with the ticket was bought with found money, IIRC, so it’s not entirely irresponsible. I think we ought to give him a pass on this.
That’s his story now. We only have his word on it, though. Have you interviewed any of his former employees? He could be lying, or just in some sort of fugue state. The dude is pretty crazy, you know.
Well, in the books at least, it’s made clear that Willy Wonka is no spring chicken. He’s an old man. Spry, yes, but old, and he says he’s “older than he looks.”
True, he does have Wonka-Vite to stave off old age, but after the fiasco with Grandma Georgina, Grandpa George, and Grandma Josephine, he’s probably a bit leery of trying it out on himself.
However, it’s also made clear that he’s the only human being who understands the threat of the vermicious knids, and it is quite possible that he is handing off the chocolate factory to Charlie so that he can develop better defensive technologies for the earth to ward them off.
In the book, the first was a present from his family, the second was purchased with Grandpa Joe’s stash of small change, and the third and fourth were purchased with found money. We should still give him a pass, though, because in the book, he is literally starving at the time he finds the money.
Grandpa Joe, both in the book and in the Burton film, relates this story as though it was a pretty well-known problem for Wonka, including examples of specific products Slugworth and the other candy makers stole from him.
Yes but Grandpa Joe was so “Pro-Wonka” that anyhting he said should be considered suspect. Wonka probably strongarmed the local media into palying up stories of industrial espionage. Grandpa Joe was jsut passing along bad information.
That was going to be my next point. Willy Wonka makes a rather flimsy cover story for them being there but yes, they are obviously slaves.
They might have been tricked into getting on the boat on their own but that isn’t unheard of. Once they arrived at the factory, they aren’t allowed to leave or interact with anyone else in the town. Those are standard traits of slave-owners. Of course they act somewhat content when they are finally exposed to other people. Massa will beat the fuck out of them when the visitors leave if they don’t.
It is obvious the Oompa Loompas have some pretty serious genetic issues and I doubt they get any medical care for joint problems and so forth. Furthermore, their life expectancy can’t be that high and Willy certainly has to breed them to keep himself supplied.
Another telltale sign is how the Oompa Loompas invented their own songs (in English) and sing them while they work or to express themselves. Slave hymns have long been a way for slaves to express themselves mentally and culturally even while they endure the earthly bonds of captivity.
I just can’t see Charlie cracking the whip on them literally or figuratively once Willy Wonka isn’t around anymore. That can be a dangerous situation for Charlie because the Oompa Loompas know they aren’t ever leaving the factory dead or alive.
