by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B+ Rated R 116 min
Richard Linklater created this fictional scenario from Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction expose of the fast food industry. Linklater’s loosely related vignettes orbit the central core, which is how the meat packing industry has become the Jabba the Hut of American business. It has grown into a mega-beast that allows a certain percentage of fecal contamination to exist in the product. This production juggernaut is driven by the enormous demand for hamburger meat from the various fast food chains which drives up profits to staggering levels.
The main scenario exists on three fronts: First: The plight of the illegal Mexican workers is depicted. They are recruited across the border by ruthless coyotes in-league with the meat packers to do the nasty jobs inside the plant that no Americans can tolerate.
Second: Greg Kinnear portrays Don Henderson, a marketing executive for a big fast food giant, Mickey’s. He is sent to Cody, Colorado to investigate reports of excess fecal matter in the meat at their meat packing plant.
And third: Linklater chronicles the life of a mother and daughter Cindy (Patricia Arquette) and Amber (Ashley Johnson) who both work at Mickey’s. Amber wants to go to college but the family is struggling financially. Working at Mickey’s was the only job she could find. This segment exposes the lives of the working poor.
The three loosely related scenarios vacillate back and forth. They tell a shocking story of how the mega-corporate businesses like meat packing control everything, set against the abuse of illegal aliens coming to America to better their lives. Henderson’s trip to Cody becomes an eye-opening expose of the meat packing industry.
Later, Henderson talks to a well connected rancher, Rudy (Kris Kristofferson) who tells him that the meat packing industry and the land developers are driving out independent ranchers with their big money clout.”They don’t care about safety or avoiding fecal matter in the meat. They just care about profits,” he says.
Bruce Willis portrays a major Mickey’s supplier who knows the meat packing plant well. He tells Henderson that trace amounts of fecal matter in the hamburger is unavoidable and he says that cooking the meat at the right temperature, nullifies any contamination. Henderson is not satisfied with this explanation. Yet, he feels helpless to do anything about it. He’s one man up against a politically connected giant.
In the group of illegal aliens recruited to work at the plant, Linklater follows Sylvia and Francisco’s struggles to make a better life for themselves in America. Francisco gets hurt in a fall at the plant and he can’t work. So Sylvia tries to get a job at the plant but is refused. However, a friend tells her she knows a supervisor Mike (Bobby Cannavale) who could help her get the job.
Despite the abysmal conditions at the meat packing plant, demand for Mickey’s burgers is burgeoning, and the company rolls on, raking in the profits, ignoring the increased percentage of fecal matter in the meat. Linklater’s point is: In the end, it’s’ about making money, not food safety.
Dividing the scenario into parts would have made it easier to follow. Nonetheless, it’s a penetrating story of how this huge meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado effects the lives of many people, from the abused illegal aliens, to the working poor, to top executives of the fast food giants.
Meanwhile, the gears of industry grind on as the mega-corporations buy political influence which allows them carte blanch on making bigger profits at the expense of public safety. The bottom line: There’s trace amounts of bovine excrement in the meat served at fast food restaurants. Sure it’s cooked. But for the consumer, any contamination is unacceptable. Bon appetite!
The non-fiction book Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, hit the shelves in 2001 and soon climbed the New York Times Bestseller list. The impact of Fast Food Nation was reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle because Schlosser spotlights the failings of the fast food industry the same way as Sinclair’s fictional expose of the meat packing industry did. Both Sinclair and Schlosser are concerned about the exploitation of immigrant workers. It seems that not much, except for the scale of operations, has changed in a hundred years. But the plight of the workers isn’t what gets consumers to stand up and take notice. Sinclair’s book propelled a massive reform of the meat packing industry because people were disgusted with the unsanitary conditions their food was being handled in. The same is true in this case. Calls for reform of the way the food is handled and packaged are much louder, and the plight of undocumented workers is just a secondary concern.
Schlosser and co-author Charles Wilson also released another book this year, Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food. This book might be considered far more damaging to the industry, as it targets a demographic crucial to the fast food industry: 11 to 15 year olds. The publication of this book has lead to further spin control on the part of the fast food industry; even more intense than the spin required for the fictionalized movie of Fast Food Nation.
The book Fast Food Nation also probably inspired the 2003 docu-drama Super Size Me, in which Morgan Spurlock eats exclusively at McDonald’s for a one-month period. Spurlock gained 25 pounds and his liver began to fail. Spurlock asked Eric Schlosser to be in his movie, but the camera-shy author refused to be in the documentary itself. Instead, you can find an interview between Schlosser and Spurlock on the DVD extras of the documentary. Spurlock and Schlosser’s attacks on the unhealthy food served at fast food counters have led to menu modifications and counter attacks from the industry itself. Check out http://www.bestfoodnation.com to see the industry’s responses to these attacks.
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