Food - Fast, Cheap, Dirty

I have little interest in films that deal with the politics of food/food production partly because it makes the very act of eating a moral issue. Whilst criticism of McDonalds and the agricultural-industrial complex is not entirely misplaced, anxiety about food in an age of plenty is a bit of a luxury. Plus food has become a fiercely moral pursuit often at the expense of those not economically privileged or with limited means to procure food that has been duly sanctified as organic, allottment grown and the like. Fast Food Nation was therefore not high on my DVD list, I ended up buying it merely because it was part of a bundle of DVDs that I got on the cheap. The fact that I am blogging on it is obvious indication that it did provoke a couple of thoughts.

The movie, directed by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise), is based on the book of the same name which I haven’t read. But if the movie is faithful to the vision of the book, it would appear that it intends to cover all aspects of food in present day developed societies from the meat factories to food companies to the people who fuel this vast enterprise, be they middle class professionals, cheap immigrant labour, the underclass that is the backbone of the food service industry or activists seeking a more ethical way of making food. It also looks at the people left behind by the modern food industry like small farmers and cattle men. This it does by way of a plot where the inventor of a best selling burger called "Big One" is dispatched to the meat factory in the fictional town of Cody, Colarado due to a suspicion that the meat in the burger contains merde (it does, the obligatory Latina who works for an oldtimey cattle type announces that everyone knows the meat contains shit). For all its aseptic appearance, the meat factory has more than one dirty secret to which everyone involved turns a blind eye. A parallel story has illegal immigrants from Mexico who are employed by the factory and stay despite the harsh conditions at work because it is far better than wages back home. Yet another story strand has a student working at the burger outlet who is awakened to the realities of her job and gradually falls in with a bunch of activists out to close down the meat factory (one of whom incredibly is Ms. Lavigne).

It would therefore seem that the film is a fictionalised version of Schlosser's book (itself a nod to The Jungle, Upton Sinclair however, reflecting the concerns of his time was writing about the plight of workers rather than food per se). The problem is that none of the characters seem real, a situation exacerbated by dialogues that appear to be chunks of text from the book. The worst is reserved for the illegal Mexican immigrants who are not given an ounce of resourcefulness but for the most part are merely herded into their fates. And like all food polemics, it is entirely silent on the consumers who patronise fast food. Part of my problem with food politics is that it equates consumers to the cattle they consume. The consumer therefore has little or no agency both in decoding the messages they receive on fast food or in deciding the food they eat (in an aside I was amused by Powell’s piece which indicates that buying ready made meals from Whole Foods is fairly common. The fact is cooking is an arduous process and most technology is aimed at reducing the drudgery of the kitchen which is precisely why there has been an inexorable shift towards food that is partially or completely prepared). It also seems reasonable to assume from the reviews that the book is intended as a scathing attack on the food industry in the US, in particular McDonalds. The movie however appears to occupy an uneasy space. It is by turns earnest, morally improving in tone, horrified and gently meditative on the nature of modern society as represented by a small town in Colarado. As it happens, Linklater is more effective when he adopts the latter approach. Cody, for example, is a bit of a nowhere town dominated by the meat industry and Linklater evokes this expertly by way of the white and fluorescent factory, the little bars, the roads, the accommodation the immigrants live in, the motels for executives who fly in, burger outlets and the like.

The centrepiece of the film is a workplace accident and the “processing” of a bewildered and very much alive cow into chunks of meat. In fact these scenes render the movie so Dickensian that ultimately it seems the movie is not so much about the food we consume and the pervasive influence of corporations in our century as much as the fear and dread that accompanies our relationship with machines. Like in a Victorian novel, the machine consumes both man and beast and spits them out maimed or dead. And in the film’s ending scenes more sacrificial victims crossing the border wait to be fed into the engines of industry.