King: a person or thing preeminent in its class. Corn: a tall cereal plant, Zea mays, cultivated in many varieties, having a jointed, solid stem and bearing the grain, seeds, or kernels on large ears. King Corn. The title says it all. Cheney and Ellis work eloquently throughout their documentary to portray to us the unfortunate circumstance that we as a society and as a nation find ourselves in. We are living in a country that is ruled by the corn crop and its overproduction. The word king implies omnipotence and supreme power. And those who have seen the mountainous regions of corn, the immense elevators that can no longer fit all the excess produced corn, as well as the vast fields of the crop that can literally engulf a person and render him useless to himself should he lose his sense of direction, will hopefully agree that we should simply start genetically modifying corn to grow crowns and sit on a throne since it has gained the power to dictate such a large part of our lifestyles.Cheney and Ellis, however, took a major step in the right direction. After interviewing a man with diabetes who explained how his decreasing levels of grape soda consumption allowed him to lose a large amount of weight, and that practically every member of his family either had diabetes or passed away because of it, the two friends realized that their one acre of corn could mean somebody’s life.
Their final decision: to buy the land of a fellow neighbor whose land was about to be sold and most likely used to plant corn, and play baseball on it instead. By doing so, Cheney and Ellis yelled out to the nation that their king was taking advantage of their bodies and using them as storage for its wastes. The two friends took a stand and rebelled against an almighty king who had forces surrounding them on all sides. However, Cheney and Ellis did not seem to mind. And it is this daring attitude that will serve as the most powerful force of all towards possibly making changes to the overproduction of corn, our king.
