Directed by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), the movie adaptation of Eric Schlosser's 2001 bestselling book raises several socio-economic issues, albeit incompletely. In this movie, we deal with illegal immigration, underpaid citizen workers, earnestly liberal college students who talk a good game and do nothing, supervisors at meat processing plants who may or may not be the Anti-Christ, fast food executives who turn a blind eye to, let's say, quality control issues, and the process that goes into that Big Mac you're eating. And that's just for starters.
While the film kept my interest (which is about 75 percent of the battle), it didn't do a complete job of educating the consumer. Sure the fast-food companies are ruthless, but only because they receive government subsidies which keep them from having to compete in a truly free market. When you're a fast-food behemoth, and your only competition is four or five other government-subsizied behemoths, you can deliver a crummy product to market, pay your workers peanuts and treat them like crap, and pay off state and federal legislators to look the other way while you employ illegal immigrants.
However, some mavericks in the industry still do try to deliver the best food products at the lowest prices, and try to treat their workers well. An example is In N Out Burger of California. which "refuses to franchise and pays the highest wages in the fast food industry," according to Salon.com's Mario Russo, in his review of Sclosser's book. The highest priced item on In N Out's menu, according to Russo, is $2.45. Now that's a company that adheres to the rules of the free market, without seeking government favors. And you know what? Their prices are low, and their wages are high.
Greg Kinnear plays a marketing executive in the Mickey's fast food chain who tries, in vain as it turns out, to blow the whistle on his employers for their practice of allowing cow manure to mix in with the burgers (a result of processing plant lines that have been sped up). In ther end, he does nothing. The burgers go to market, the illegal immigrants cross the border, and life goes on. However, no one is forcing us to eat fast food. It's a conscious choice to buy a Big Mac, it's a conscious choice to refuse one. In one scene with Avril Lavigne and the earnestly liberal students in Colorado whom we talked about earlier, the group discusses the hoplessness of appealing to their elected officials to confront the fast food companies and their sleazy practices. Their solution? Cut the fence bordering the nearby cattle grazing field and set the oppressed cows and bulls free! Needless to say, this didn't work; but an A for effort!
Nonetheless, Fast Food Nation is a useful piece of consumer education, imperfect as it may be. And now it is up to us, the consumers. I eat way too much fast food myself, all the more reason to eliminate it from my diet. Appealing to their sense of public-spiritedness won't do; we have to talk, vote and protest with our dollars. That's the only language that these fast food kingpins will understand.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna head up to Taco Bell.
