Fast Food Nation Entry 5

Christopher Thomsen

Dr. Jason Smith

English 101

25 March 2014

What’s Really Under the Face Paint

Since early on, the fast food industry has picked up on the important role that young kids and teenagers play in the success and growth of their company’s.  In the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser he exposes the horrors of the industry to the public.  They take advantage of the putty like minds of the young adolescent as soon as possible to attract a lifelong client.  Working on the inside of these establishments, teenagers who are used for cheap labor and in early cases were paid even less then minimum wage.  Today they are still getting taken advantage of, are put in dangerous situations on a daily basis, and are compensated for it by getting the lowest amount of pay that is currently allowed by law.

Step one; make a character that has almost the same recognition as Santa Claus.  Starting at the age of two, children develop brand loyalty and that is something that will never leave them.  Early on during the baby boom Kroc picked the perfect moment to start advertising towards kids.  People were into their country heavily as World War 2 had just ended and Kroc made sure the flag was always displayed along with the McDonald's flag showing that they were an "All American" company.  This helped attract the parents and grandparents, the newly added "Playlands" did the rest.  They were advertised on TV to make them look like a ride that was right out of Disney Land and they had songs of famous Disney's rides playing in the background of the commercial.  This was so parents could take their kids to "Disney Land" and they only had to spend a few bucks doing so.  Soon McDonald's was seen as imagery in a youngsters head "bright colors, a playground, a toy, a clown, a drink with straw, little pieces of food wrapped like a present” (p.52).  The seeds were planted.

Kroc and Disney started this revolution of child advertising back then and now everyone uses it.  Even things that are currently out of the reach of kid’s hands such as beer and cigarettes are still constantly thought about by them because of the clever commercials they produce with kid friendly characters.  So as soon as they hit 18 or 21, guess what they’re buying?  Bud-Wiss-Err! I love those frogs!  Too bad the beer tastes so bad, but I still remember the commercial from all those years ago.  For younger consumer’s kid based commercials get them to do the most powerful thing of all, nag.  A parent can only take so much of this until buying a cheesy bean burrito seems like a cheap easy way out of nag land.  These commercials are pretty effective seeing that “about one-quarter of American children between the ages of two and five have a TV in their room (p.57)”.  Are the fast food company's buying these TV's for the children as soon as they turn the age of two?  This is a major problem because children “could not comprehend the real purpose of commercials and trusted that advertising claims were true (p.56).”

I didn't think this was even possible before reading this book and I find it to be the lowest point to which advertising has sunken.  Apparently now advertising is all over grade schools and some are even allowing fast food into their cafeterias because fast food is cool and they want the cafeteria to be a cool place to be.  The schools say they can't help it because they need the money to prevent further cutbacks.  This is a major win for advertising considering that kids have no choice but to spend about seven hours a day there.  Advertisements and vending machines are strategically placed throughout the school so kids can get easy access to them quickly at all times.  I find this disgusting and when I was in public schools I would have never thought things would come to this.

So who run's these fast food establishments, you would think that you would need someone with a lot of schooling to make sure that everything is implemented correctly.  Not so, Kroc and the McDonald brothers have made everything so simple that anyone can work in one.  Everyone has a simple job that is one step of the process, nothing is too complicated.  This makes it attractive to kids still in school not looking to be challenged.  For most of the employees this is their first job and they can afford to make the low wages because they are still living with their parents and have minimal living expenses.  Most of the employees get paid minimum wage and have no benefits.  This is because any attempts of a union being brought in have been dealt with quickly and swiftly even resorting to closing a location and reopening a few blocks away when a union was almost implemented.  This is the case in so many jobs including my own.  Half of my site was signed up by the union, and it had even been brought in by my manager.  As soon as upper management caught wind though everyone was threatened not to sign up or everyone would be fired and a new company would be brought in.  McDonald's only sees unions as an expense and they are only profit orientated.  That's all they care about.  One of the ways that they keep cost down is to have many employees on staff that all work around thirty hours a week.  If it slow they get sent home if it is busy they have to stay late.  They insure that their employees will not hit over time this way.

A job that pays so low should be care free and not life threatening but many work related injuries occur in fast food restaurants.  “Teenagers are far more likely to be untrained, and every year, about 200,000 are injured on the job (P.99).”  I'm sure although most of these are not fatal, but there is something scarier about working in a fast food joint.  “Roughly four or five fast food workers are now murdered on the job every month, usually during the course of a robbery (P.99).”  The worst part is that most of these robberies take place by former employees who are in the same demographic group “the young and the poor” (P.100).  When the current and former employees aren't robbing the place half of the ones currently working are stealing money from them.  Jerald Greenberg says “when people are treated with dignity and respect they are less likely to steal from their employer... The same anger that causes most petty theft, the same desire to strike back at an employer perceived as unfair, can escalate to armed robbery” (P.100).  Some workers who have come to work at McDonald's to start a new on the books life for themselves even resort to bringing illegal handguns to work to stay protected.  Low wages cause crime but they don't care because cash is king.  I could see even a dollar raise helping out a lot, but I doubt fast food workers will ever make more than minimum wage.

In conclusion Fast Food Nation is opening up my eyes more and more with each page I read.  The ingenious but deplorable ways that they conduct are becoming more apparent.  It seems they can't be stopped, they have infiltrated everything!  I’m growing to hate them more and more but yet I still want one of those new cheddar bacon McChicken's.  Damn you McDonald's!  I can only hope by the end of the book I will be weaned off fast food but somehow I doubt it.  As I too have been infected by the golden arches from an early age, and sadly the only cure I see are more french fries.