Fast Food Nation

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Fast Food Nation
On December 1, 2016 I rented from Amazon prime, Fast Food Nation, a movie directed by Richard Linklater. Screenplay was written by Richard Linklater and the author of the book by the same name, Eric Schlosser. The film opens with Don Anderson, family man and the Marketing director of a Mickey’s Burgers learning that there is high count of E Coli bacteria in Mickey’s “Big One” burger. His department is marketing; he does not understand what he is being told so he is told in a manner anyone could understand, “There is shit in the meat.” The company CEO sends Don on a trip to the town of Cody Colorado the home to the one and only meat packer of the Mickey’s “Big One” burger patties and the location of the first Mickey’s Fast …show more content…

Did I only want to munch down on a hot juicy “Big One” and keep a dime in my pocket? Fast Food Nation introduced me to a small family from Mexico crossing the Mexican American border. The film follows Raul, his wife Sylvia and her sister Coco to the land of good and plenty. The viewer is introduced to these characters in a dark alley on the Mexican side of the border where they meet up with others with the same dreams of coming to America to work. Raul and his family knows of jobs in Cody Colorado he pays the Coyote (human smuggler) for the trip to Cody. They endure many trials and tribulations in the desert then are packed in back of a van as cattle to market, with a gun wielding driver named Benny, they arrive in Cody Colorado. It is here that the film starts to show the dark underside of the meat packing business in America. My take on how the meat packers see migrate workers is the same as they see the cows in the holding pen. Something to use and dispose of not, as human beings. The meat packers know that they hold all the power over these individuals. The film showed me this when in a crowded motel room where close to twenty labors lived, Mike the gutting line manager enters and picks and chooses workers for the night shift. Raul is one of the workers chosen. The film allows us to follow Raul through his introduction to his new job at Uni-Globe meat …show more content…

Uni-Global is a fictitious slaughter and meat packing company Mr. Linklater makes up for the film. The view inside the Uni-Global is the center of the film. We see it from the illegal Aliens point of view. Don Anderson marketing director from Mickeys Corporate headquarters is given a whitewashed cleaner than God tour. Mr. Linklater does not break the fourth wall and talk directly to his audience instead he visually informs us of the cold treatment of the workers in the plant and the inhuman treatment of the cattle in the holding pens awaiting slaughter. I was repulsed by Uni-Global. I nearly wept when Sylvia is forced to sell herself sexually to Mike for a position on the gut table only to be placed on the kill floor by him. It is at the moment when a cow enters the cattle chute and I saw the gun come up to a place behind the cow’s ear that I stopped the film. I was not able to watch

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