With all the fun stuff in the theaters over the weekend I decided instead to see Fast Food Nation. And I felt like I had gone through the grinder along with the meat. The plot and action are just thin wrapping around an exploration of the meat packing and slaughterhouse business, and it's not pretty. A guy gets chewed up in a grinder. You get to see everything from the head tap of the bolt gun, to the skin being torn off by a machine, to the bag of guts and entrails that they rip out and harvest from for kidneys.
It's pretty intense. The crowd in the theater was small. And it got smaller as time went on. It's a tough subject to cover without the material overwhelming the viewer. It's not a pleasant read. And there were no pictures in the book. So I can see why they wanted to cut the intensity a little by going with a fictionalization as opposed to a straight documentary. The documentary style would have been way over the top.
If you eat a burger that costs you a dollar now and again you may want to think about just what it would take to still make a profit on a dollar burger. And where corners would have to be cut to get to that price. Once you follow that logic path, you may find yourself not wanting to eat off that menu any longer.
Posted by jherr at November 20, 2006 10:23 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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