Jen and I went to see Fast Food Nation last night at the AMC over on Illinois (of course). I always have such a hard time with seeing movies or reading stuff whose content tackles the issues of fast food corporate machinery or animal rights. Clearly, Fast Food Nation wasn’t a story revolving around a stance on animal cruelty but its story did follow your hamburger back to everything that went on to get it to your plate – or more realistically – your lap, while you’re driving your car and eating.
The reason I think I have such a hard time watching this stuff is because it’s nothing new to me. I didn’t learn anything from this movie, because it’s all stuff I learned 10 years ago. This is where my issues come from. In my opinion, there’s two general types of people when it comes to the subject matter of slaughterhouse footage, PETA-style documentaries, et al: (1) the type of person who will watch it and not care; (2) the type of person who will watch it and see what’s wrong with what they’re seeing and either feel bad about contributing to it, or feel motivated to do something about it. In my experience, figuring out which type of person you do generally leads to the same result: nothing happens. Now, I am in no way saying that one way is better than the other, or judging any one person’s reaction to such information. It’s just that it stirs up something inside of me that’s confusing.
Years ago I was the kid at the hardcore show standing at the table reading information about animal cruelty, vegetarianism and veganism. I eventually spent many years as a vegetarian and a little under 2 as a vegan. Fast forward to now, and the only shred of that former self is the fact that I still listen to the same music. This may seem pretty meandering, and the point may seem vague – but I guess my problem is that when I see things like slaughterhouse footage I can’t decide if i’m upset by it because – in the present – I actually have adverse feelings to it or if it’s merely conjuring up old feelings reminiscent of another time in my life; like hearing an old song out on nowhere that instantly puts you in another place.
What does this have to do with the movie? Not a lot I guess haha. I think I just needed to write this out and try to sort through why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling. Anyway, about the movie – It was terriffic, and I’d highly recommend that people at least Netflix it.
2 Comments
The thing that upsets the most is when someone watch something like this and say “poor little animal” and even cry then ten minutes later they’ve already forgotten about it and order a cheese bacon or something.
If this movie gets here in Brazil I’m so going to watch it. Despite the fact that I can’t watch those PETA-style documentaries you mentioned.
interesting