Abattoir blues
I would say I urge you to see Fast Food Nation, out on DVD next week, since it's Richard Linklater's dramatised adaptation of Eric Schlosser's landmark non-fiction book of the same name, which blew my mind when I first read it, and made me, yes, smug that I had long since denounced McDonald's. (I used to eat fast food on a daily basis when I was the editor of Q, among other unhealthy habits, and my conversion came circa 1997, when I went the other way completely, and have not looked back. But I know of which I condemn.) Anyway, it's no secret now that fast food is, hey, bad for you. One of the least edifying spectacles in industrial food manufacture of the last ten years was McDonald's launching healthy salads and dropping their supersize option and claiming it had nothing to do with the bad publicity generated by Morgan Spurlock. Just stick to what you do best.
Nobody's forced to eat takeaway burgers. If you like 'em, the libertarian within me says, go and eat them. Unfortunately, it's become much harder to pretend that the big chains are just in the business of selling food, fast, to happy customers. They are bad employers. Their power makes them dangerous. They have a stranglehold on suppliers of both meat and potatoes, which destroys farmland and the environment through heavy pesticide and herbicide use, and it's not cost-effective to farm organic cows when you need that much meat, that quickly, and at a constant rate. Hence: industrialised farming on a scale most of couldn't imagine.
That's what lies at the heart of Schlosser's book, and the film. Both trace the food chain back from the scrumptious burger (and as I say, I used to wolf them down too), via the exploited workers and the exploited kiddies at whom the toy-based marketing is aimed, to the "prison camps for cows", as Avril Lavigne's activist character describes them. (Yes, Avril Lavigne.) it kind of works, although it might actually have made a better documentary. The characters just spout rhetoric, because it's a Message Movie, and the Message must get through. Anyway, the reason I don't necessarily urge you to see the film, whose cast is good (Greg Kinnear, Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Kris Kristofferson), is that there's real footage from an industrial slaughterhouse at the end.
That's a real slaughterhouse. I don't know how Linklater got permission to film there (if indeed he did), but it's not pretty, and makes a powerful denouement to the story. Moral spoiler! Read no further is you think you'll find this upsetting! The sight of distressed cows being herded down a metal corridor, then shot in the head with a stun gun and having their throats cut while suspended and clearly still alive is grim indeed. They are then gutted and skinned, by which time at least they no longer know anything about it. The guts slide slickly down a chute, the sight of which makes one of the immigrant workers in the film feel faint. And me. I am a meat eater. I eat meat. I choose to pay the dividend and eat certifiied organic meat, which doesn't mean the cows aren't killed in an abattoir, I know that, so I guess by being shocked and yet continuing to eat meat, I am either a hypocrite, or a fatalist. Fast Food Nation, book or film but especially film, could make a vegetarian of you. Linklater's been one since 1983.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:24 PM
8 Comments
Contact
Andrew at
8 Comments:
I was a vegetarian for 20 years but went the other way for medical reasons. I've read Fast Food Nation and whilst I wouldn't go back to vegetarianism I can see why it would make others do that. I've always avoided fast food like the plague and now I've binned ready meals too after seeing another eye-opening documentary.
Fast Food Nation, Shopped and some of the Michael Moore and Mark Thomas should be compulsary reading/viewing.
When you say that the cows are 'clearly still alive'? Is it because they're twitching slightly?
Because if so I think (or according to the F Word at least) that's just an involuntary muscle reaction, and that the cows can't feel a thing. They're still alive, but unconscious, I think, and then die from the blood loss, never regaining consciousness.
(I'm sure there are plenty of other things that are grim about that abattoir though - I eat organic too).
Andrew, thank you for writing about this book and film. I recommended them to everyone. To me, they reinforced several of my reasons for being vegetarian (15 years and counting). But I was concerned that anyone whose diet/lifestyle may change after learning what fast food is really all about just wouldn't pick up this book or watch this movie. I can't imagine a fast food junkie tuning in and understanding that, although it's not a documentary, it's all true. However, maybe there are a lot of people on the fence reading your blog and will check out the book or movie. So I thank you. And if people need another reason to go veg and buy local, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport.
I've been vegetarian since about 15 (apart from a couple of years when I worked as a restaurant critic, so couldn't go for the vegetarian option each week without losing my job!)
I don't eat meat due to medical reasons, as I can't digest it well, and after 15 years I was fed up of feeling ill after every Sunday roast.
McDonald's to me would be like kryptonite to Superman...
I will watch this film, although I have seen film of slaughterhouses in the past, which didn't really upset me too much.
I always wonder why people find it so shocking. I know it appears quite brutal, but how else do you think the cow ends up on your plate?
Frankie Roberto is correct above, as the cows twitch, but they are technically brain dead by that point, and certainly don't feel any pain.
If you think an abbatoir is shocking, you should see footage of animals being slaughtered for Halal meat. I'm not against people having religious beliefs, but it's an inhumane practice in my eyes.
I'm off to get a salad baguette...
One reason I became vegetarian (which I quit after 10 years) was Bob Geldof's account of working in an abattoir in "Is That It?" I would guess the animals' deaths are pretty fast, but it's clear they go through absolute terror in the minutes leading up to death. This will sound naive, but I assumed cows bred for organic beef lived (and died) in better conditions than other farmed cows. Probably not, now that I think about it. I think McDonalds' salads are a farce. Once you put the dressing on they are nothing more than junk food. Of course, their symbolic gesture is important, but I feel they could have tried harder at countering the harmful things they generate (while still being loyal to 'the bottom line').
Did anyone see the BBC3 short season of programmes were you saw meat's journey from field to plate? It was grim telly, but mandatory viewing as far as I'm concerned.
I forced my housemates to watch it as I'm veggie and they'll eat anything that had a pulse (even veal and foie gras). Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a militant but I felt it really important that everyone should be aware of what they eat and, crucially, how it ended up on the shelf in Tescos.
I was a blubbering wreck when I saw the cows being slaughtered. The involuntary muscle spasms made it particularly hard to watch, even if they were brain dead by this stage.
I applaud Linklatter for making this film. Actually, I tend to applaud Linklatter for all of his films as he's a true maverick.
Sorry - this is a bit of a pointless post but I felt compelled to join in.
I saw this DVD in HMV today, and I'm now convinced it will be a good watch. i had a Burger King today too, so feel slighty guilty now. Never again I tell ya!
Thanks Andrew
Sarah Marie Love
I'm sure I've missed the boat on this one...but I will try and make the point anyway. Andrew, you mention that "[you] know of which [you] condemn". Philosophically, I admire this and I know why you make the point, and you make it briefly. "What do they know of England who only England know", you might say. However, I try not to be stuck-up in making the following point: we would all be better people if we were not libertarian about this. I know of which we condemn too, and I reckon people who do not know about it are better people for never having suffered it.
Post a Comment
<< Home