Fast Food Nation Lessons
Lesson One
Essay Assignment
Schlosser aims to show that the domination of the fast food business in American society is a predatory agency that results in exploitation, dehumanization, a cultural dumbing-down, dysfunctional, overly-business-friendly government, urban sprawl, and poor physical health. Is he convincing in his damning portrayal of the American fast food enterprise? Or is he a left-leaning ideologue writing a far-left screed to impose his preconceived political beliefs on his readers? Support your argument in a 1,200-word essay. Be sure to include a counterargument-rebuttal section, and an MLA format Works Cited page. You need 5 sources.
One. What is Schlosser’s purpose in juxtaposing fast food relics with a nuclear bomb shelter?
He is driving the point that fast food is more than a business; it is a sort of predator and/or parasite that has become part of the very fiber of our being, and we accept it as normal when in fact this fast food influence is pathological and reflects our entire existence: cultural, economical, domestic, and, of course, gastronomic.
Schlosser writes on page 3 that “buying fast food has become so routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, that it is now taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a red light.”
But this “mundane” lifestyle defines our culture as other cultures have been defined by the way they eat: “The early Roman Republic was fed by its citizen-farmers; the Roman Empire, by its slaves. A nation’s diet can be more revealing than its art or literature. On any given day in the United States about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food restaurant. During a relatively brief period of time, the fast food industry has helped to transform not only the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, workforce, and popular culture.
Two. How has fast food industry been a negative force in our society?
No even addressing health concerns for a moment, the economic decline of our country corresponds to our economic decline. Since 1973, American real wages, adjusted for inflation, have steadily gone downward (4).
As these real wages have gone down, more mothers have had to join the workforce. This means less time for home cooking. “Today about half of the money used to buy food is spent at restaurants--mainly at fast food restaurants (4).
“The McDonald’s Corporation is largest owner of retail property in the world.”
96% of schoolchildren are familiar with Ronald McDonald.
Fast food is part of a growing trend for franchises, a chain everything.
A chain, which values uniformity and conformity, is the opposite of independent owned.
Fast food introduces new innovations and is a showcase for capitalism; but it is also part of the growing chasm between the rich and the poor.
3.5 million fast food workers get minimum wage.
Rural life serves the fast food industry: slaughterhouses, cattle ranching, agriculture, all corporate.
Independent farmers are dying out: “The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers.”
Three. What free market delusion fuels the American West’s fast food fantasy?
We see on page 7 that fast food arises from a “political philosophy that now prevails in so much of the West--with its demand for lower taxes, smaller government, an unbridled free market” and this philosophy “stands in total contradiction to the region’s true economic underpinnings. No other region of the United States has been so dependent on government subsidies for so long . . . “
The fast food industry is hypocritical: “While publicly espousing support for the free market, the fast food chains have quietly pursued and greatly benefited from a wide variety of government subsidies.”
Four. How is the fast food industry a predatory agency of children?
“Fast food is heavily marketed to children and prepared by people who are barely older than children. This is an industry that both feeds and feeds off the young.”
Fast food is made to be addictive in a top-secret chemical factory in New Jersey.
Fast food uses toys to entice children.
Fast food employs teens to sell its wares to kids.
Five. Why was Southern California the birthplace of fast food?
A sprawling city, Los Angeles requires long-distance travel by car. Between 1920 and 1940, when cars were affordable, traffic lent itself to a place to stop and get a “quick bite.”
Los Angeles had the first drive-through bank and motel.
Car culture exists in a symbiotic relationship with fast food culture. The irony is that the “free-market” minimum-wage philosophy of fast food depends on the government-subsidy of roads.
Los Angeles was the birthplace of the carhop, where waitresses, wearing alluring costumes, carried trays to the food patrons in parked cars. These waitresses received no hourly wages; they relied on tips.
Fast food was a big hit with Southern California youth culture who wanted to stay up late.
To this day, fast food is a hit with youth, including cannabis smokers, according to this Forbes article.
We read that “fast food targets stoners.”
Six. How did McDonald’s revolutionize the fast food business?
The brothers got sick of dealing with teenagers, so they created a “Speedee Service System” to get patrons out of restaurant as quickly as possible. This system got rid of carhops, waitresses, dishwashers, busboys, and made the system self-service.
At first, customers were testy with the no-service policy, but the cheaper price of burgers won their hearts, and McDonald’s grew like weeds.
Another factor: This cheaper price made it so working-class families could afford to feed their entire families. This was a game-changer.
At this time, San Bernardino had the happy face McDonald’s side of American culture and the darker Hell’s Angels side (21).
We read: “Entrepreneurs from all over the country went to San Bernardino, visited the new McDonald's, and built imitations of the restaurant in their hometown” (22).
Seven. What is the comparison between McDonald’s and Disneyland?
Both offer a fantasy of American cleanness and innocence.
Both offer a lifestyle of conformity, control, and uniformity.
Both were master salesmen to children.
Both relied on federal funds to elevate their businesses while both asserted a conservative political philosophy that discourages public funding for everyone else (38).
Both champion science and technology to make elevate their business model.
Disney and McDonald’s champion cartoon characters that became children’s obsessions.
Both champion “synergy” in which you have tie-ins like the movie Sing with Sing character toys give with Happy Meals (40).
There was a time when only a few companies targeted children with their products (42); however, Disney and McDonald’s, because of their success, influenced hordes of other companies to follow their child-targeting ways. We read: “Hoping that nostalgic childhood memories of a brand will lead to a lifetime of purchases, companies now plan ‘cradle-to-grave’ advertising strategies. They have come to believe what Ray Kroc and Walt Disney realized long ago--a person’s ‘brand loyalty’ may begin as early as the age of two. Indeed, market research has found that children often recognize a brand logo before they can recognize their own name” (43).
Eight. Why are children an effective target for marketing products?
Children stay loyal to the product when they get sucked in at an early age.
Children nag their parents to the point they wear their parents down.
On page 44, we read there are many types of nags children use:
- Pleading
- Persistent
- Forceful
- Demonstrative (tantrums)
- Sugar-coated
- Threatening
- Pity
Lesson Two: Chapter 3 Behind the Counter and Chapter 4 Success
One. What is Schlosser’s objective in connecting fast food to the sprouting of tract homes on page 60?
He’s talking about the homogenization of American life and how this homogenization is dehumanizing.
Two. What have been the results of low taxation in Colorado Springs described on pages 63-65?
The lack in education, infrastructure. We need to discuss urban sprawl. See these YouTube videos:
“Rethinking Suburbia and Urban Sprawl”
Three. What does Schlosser say about the fast food industry’s reliance on adolescent labor on pages 68-88.
See the owed money, “strict regimentation,” double injury rate, and assembly line systems.
Comments