Trusted Friend Summary of Eric Scholosser's Essay Essay

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Trusted Friend

Summary of Eric Scholosser's Essay

There are very few living persons in the United States above the age of 5 or 6 who do not know about the Walt Disney Company (Disneyland and Disney World) or about McDonald's ("I'm lovin' It!" is their current ad slogan) fast food franchises. But it is not likely that many Americans know the history of McDonald's and how their founder, Ray Kroc, built this chain from the ground up with guile, guts, aggressive marketing and by making political deals. Nor are many Americans aware of the Walt Disney's anti-union strategies or the fact that he was a secret FBI informer. Disney sided with the House Un-American Activities Committee -- chaired by disgraced U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy -- and supported the idea of the House of Representatives blacklisting Hollywood actors and writers.

In Schlosser's book (Chapter 2) the author traces the steps that Kroc and Disney followed to achieve their smashing successes in their fields. The way that Kroc marketed his greasy French fries and burgers and sugary shakes to children was brilliant, but in hindsight, the public now knows that fatty foods that are also high in sodium are not healthful for children to eat. As for Disney, he was also brilliant at marketing his stories and characters to children, using corporate sponsorships and employing the concept of "synergy" to subcontract the manufacturing of his characters' toys for greater product recognition. Basically Schlosser was linking Disney and Kroc at the hip so to speak, in terms of their near-fanatical drive to profit and expand their empires -- on the backs of American children.

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Of course Schlosser's essay is not just about Disney and Kroc; it is just one chapter in his book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, which takes the whole American junk food / fast food industry to task for the terribly unhealthy meals that are to be had in those establishments. Schlosser also takes issue with the way that fast food is marketed to kids on television, in magazines, in places like Disneyland and elsewhere.

An Intriguing Passage

"The Nixon administration supported the McDonald's bill [to lower the pay for 16-and-17-year-olds] and permitted McDonald's to raise the price of its Quarter Pounders, despite the mandatory wage and price controls restricting other fast food chains… [which] sparked Democratic accusations of influence peddling." Kroc later arrogantly, defiantly called critics of the deal he got from Nixon and Congress "sons of bitches" (Schlosser, 37).

In 1972, the year of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon was running for reelection and because both Kroc and Disney supported conservative causes, they both backed Nixon. In fact Kroc donated $250,000 to the Nixon reelection campaign. The Nixon-Kroc connection was because Kroc wanted Nixon to support the so-called "McDonald's Bill" that would give employers the legal right to pay young people sixteen and seventeen years of age "20% lower than the minimum wage" (Schlosser, p. 37).

It would be hard to imagine anything that smacked more of a dirty political back-room deal than Kroc giving Nixon a quarter of a million dollar campaign donation and in turn receiving Nixon's public support for….....

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