Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation Book And Movie

In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser offers his own variation on this famous aphorism: "A nation's diet can be more revealing than its art or literature." There is an obvious link between national identity and cuisine. We are a country of hamburger and French fry eaters, and the far-reaching consequences of this style of eating have not been adequately explored. Schlosser is less concerned by issues of cuisine than about fast food's place as a "revolutionary force in Curled Up With a Good Book American life." According to Schlosser, McDonald's, Burger King, et al, have radically altered American agriculture, economics and social life. It imperils American health and individual livelihood.

Whereas in the movie Fast Food Nation has a major clutter problem, and it prevents us from ever really knowing the people, let alone caring what becomes of them. Linklater is a talented writer (Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused) but this script is dreadfully undeveloped and lacking his typically-clever inputs. Instead, he aims to make an unapologetic 'message' movie: in a scene where a group of students gather to discuss freeing the cows, a conversation about helpless bovines segues, out of nowhere, into terrorism and the Patriot Act. There is no focus here—just random bouncing from one unknown character to the next, one arbitrary political topic to another.

That taste, according to Schlosser, is emblematic of the problem. Carefully designed and chemically enhanced, the mysterious beefy essence that we associate with James Beard's favorite French fries, for instance, has less to do with men and women in chef's whites (or even polyester shirts and visors) than with those in lab coats. In other words, we (of the fast food nation) no longer know what we are eating and our ignorance imperils us.

In the introduction, Schlosser offers ...