Fast Food Nation, the surprising nonfiction novel hit that details the wrongdoings of the fast food industry, is continuing its success as a new motion picture starring Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama and Ann Claudia TalancCB3n.
“I totally wanted it as a documentary,” said Eric Schlosser, author and screenwriter of “Fast Food Nation,” in an interview last month.
“But I didn’t trust any of the options,” he said, noting that he met with several documentary makers over a couple years to talk over ideas.
He simply didn’t want the point watered down in a film.
The film is anything but watered down. It focuses on a fictional fast food place called Mickey’s that prides itself on the “Big One,” a hot-selling burger.
The only thing is, it’s contaminated.
When Don Anderson (Kinnear), who’s on Mickey’s executive board, takes a trip to the fictional Coyote, Colo. to examine why, he discovers even more corruption and disgusting processes, all of which is gruesomely portrayed in the film.
“Fast Food Nation” focuses on a number of other issues connecting with the fast food corporation, among them being drug use, poor working conditions, labor movements and illegal immigration.
“The film is very dark, and ends in a very dark way,” Schlosser said, which he noted is very true to life.
“While some films are designed to make the audience feel good, ‘Fast Food Nation’ is not,” he says.
It unsettles you, maybe makes you feel bad. Because the film is so open and shares so many dirty secrets, Schlosser said. He was unsure of the reaction from readers and audiences, as well as corporations.
“There was a lot of times I thought, ‘I’m about to have the shit beaten out of me.'”
But it’s important for people to know these practices.
So why are so many afraid?
“There’s safety in ignorance.”
But, he said, it’s very artificial – and it’s dangerous.
Billions of dollars are spent on advertising sugary sodas and cereals for kids, just like fast food restaurants.
“These kinds of foods – and their transfats – are addictive,” he says.
“It’s like blaming smokers. It’s really hard to quit and it’s formed at a really young age,” he said.
Although there is always individual responsibility, there is still weight on corporate responsibility.
Schlosser said he’s still eats his share of hamburgers and fast food, but is “much more conscious of where my money goes.”
He would not go to a place he knows mistreats workers or animals. How would he suggest customers find out about these practices? It’s simple, he says. Ask.
“Some are sincerely trying and some aren’t,” Schlosser says.He spent years researching information for “Fast Food Nation,” and he’s been at it again for a new book he’s working on about prisons in America titled “How the Land of the Free Became a Nation Behind Bars.” “There are more prisoners in the U.S. than in Communist China,” Schlosser comments.
He is examining their treatment and the reasons that got them behind bars in the first place. “I can’t complain, but I know a lot of people who can complain and that’s mostly what I write about.”
