"Fast Food Nation," or Crushing Guilt

Hi.

I'm depressed.

It's because of McDonald's. Well, not just McDonald's; all of the fast food industry, really. Even Taco Bell.

See, I watched Fast Food Nation last night and... yeesh... let's just say that it's not a happy movie about people working together to put out a top-quality hamburger at reasonable prices. No, it's about sadness and exploitation and there's even a guy who gets a leg chopped off and, at the end of the movie, it doesn't magically become better. Ooooh no... because that wouldn't be how the real world works. In the end, the cycle continues and basically I now have the choice of eating only organic Bulgar wheat for the rest of my days, or just jumping out my office window right now and saving the cholesterol and shame the trouble of doing me in over the next thirty years.

And, okay, it's not like I didn't know all this horrible stuff before. I'm not stupid. Or not that stupid anyway. I generally know what's up. I even made an attempt at reading the book of Fast Food Nation back in college, though I was unsuccessful in my efforts due to the fact that it contained exactly zero pictures of naked ladies, which was all I was interested in at the time (Side Note: That hasn't really changed). Still, seeing the plight of those that are directly steamrolled by the fast food industry laid out in such a dramatic fashion really got to me; Richard Linklater wields this movie like a sword made entirely out of hard-forged Liberal guilt and, last night, he used that motherfucker to slice me open, but good.

So what now? With all these unpleasant images squatting in my brain, what do I do now? The obvious answer is, of course: Stop eating fast food and take the first steps down the road to living a better life that is made richer by not supporting a cruel, cold industry that crushes the disenfranchised under it's heels while it gleefully counts the fortunes it has made. And, were I a person who had any sort of willpower whatsoever, that's exactly what I'd do. Unfortunately, I've stated time and time again on this very blog how pathetically lazy I am and I wasn't really kidding. When I step through my office's revolving doors and out onto the street, my lunch money clutched excitedly in my hand, the McDonald's that's down the block beckons to me seductively. It promises scientifically-engineered-to-be-tasty food at prices that are sinfully low. It whispers to me of solace, of ease and comfort. It tells me lies like a beautiful Nazi spy that's only after our government's secrets.

And I am a weak, weak man. I am powerless to resist.

My soul for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese? God, I wish it weren't so. But it so is.

Yeah, I'm probably being melodramatic about what, essentially, is just a hamburger and the inherent commerce of same, but... still... it just feels so wrong. And not in the good, "making out behind the 7-11 with your girlfriend a half hour past curfew" kind of way. If that were the case, then we'd all be fine. No, these days, eating at McDonald's makes me me feel the same way that I assume other people feel after stomping a cat to death. And yet... here we are. Asking for the large fries with blood on our boots.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that Fast Food Nation was really a great movie and everyone should rent it tonight!!!