Fast Food Nation

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Fast Food Nation's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Fast Food Nation completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 4 October 2006.

Age recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Fast Food Nation contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear), an executive with Mickey's Fast Food Restaurants, travels to the border town of Cody to investigate claims that UMP, a meat packing plant, is selling contaminated meat to his company. At the same time, a small group of illegal Mexican immigrants, arrive in Cody looking for work. Coco (Ana Claudia Talancon) and Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) get jobs at UMP where Coco is sexually harassed and exploited by her supervisor Mike (Bobby Cannonvale). Mike introduces Coco to cocaine and she becomes addicted. When Raul is injured and then framed for drug abuse, his girlfriend Sylvia is forced to get a job at UMP but to do so must endure sexual assaults from Mike.

At the same time, Amber (Ashley Johnson), a hard working high school student who works part time at a Mickey's restaurant, gets involved with some animal activists. The group decide to go out to the UMP corrals to cut fences and release the cows.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Fast food industry, Workplace corruption and harassment, Illegal immigrants

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• one of the men helping a group of Mexicans across the border holds a hand gun and says that the gun is to stop anyone from messing with him. At one point he threatens the group with it, but then apologises
• a young male worker at a Mickey's restaurant spits on the meat of a burger he is making for a customer
• a male supervisor verbally abuses a female worker (e.g. what the fuck are you doing! are you a fucking retard!) to the point of causing her to break down and cry
• referring to two dead bodies being dumped on his land, a rancher states “they'll (UMP) slit your throat for a nickel.”
• Coco attacks and threatens another woman with a knife. Later she threatens to kill her supervisor.
• a male worker falls into a giant mincer and has his leg shredded off (lots of blood and gore)
• a man falls over a rail and lands heavily, injuring his back
• it is implied that Mike forces Sylvia to have sex with him
• graphic images are shown of cows being butchered. Their throats are cut, hides pulled off, horns cut off, intestines dumped onto a conveyer belt and heads dumped into a bin, with rivers of blood flowing.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, children under the age of eight are likely to find the slaughtering of the cows highly disturbing.

Aged eight to fifteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children aged eight to fifteen are also likely to be disturbed by the animal slaughter scenes. Children in this age group may also be very disturbed by the themes of sexual and workplace harassment.

Product placement

Fast food outlets, including McDonalds, are shown in the context of the movie.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• the slogan “I've got a big one—eat me” is suggested for The Big One, with obvious sexual connotations
• Don is in a hotel room and a pornographic film is obviously being shown on the television. Dialogue from the television is heard, “That's right bitch. Do you like it when I pull your hair?” There is lots of heavy breathing and moaning.
• a group of women at the meat packing plant talk about how the supervisor “sleeps with all the pretty girls…and gives them drugs.”
• Don is told “He's boning his secretary”
• Coco tells Raul “Fuck her—she needs it”
• Amber's Uncle Pete tells Amber “Your mother's amazing you wouldn't believe what she could accomplish in a small amount of time.” There are definite sexual connotations to the statement.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Coco and Mike are shown naked in the back seat of a car. Coco 's naked breast, upper torso, sides, hips and buttocks are visible as she straddles Mike's hips. Coco moves up and down, breathing heavily.
• Amber's mother Cindy often wears revealing clothing, including low cut tops that show lots of cleavage
• Coco , rubs her hand up and down Mike's groin (both fully clothed). They go into a room where it is implied that Mike performs oral sex on her.
• Sylvia bends over the front seat of Mike's car with Mike apparently penetrating her from behind (although both appear to be fully clothed.) Sylvia remains motionless with a look of despair on her face while Mike moves his hips back and forth.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Mike hands Coco a cannabis cigarette, which she takes and smokes
• Mike hands Coco a bag of cocaine. She takes some and sniffs it up her nose
• some beer drinking and tobacco smoking
• some dialogue referring to Coco using crack cocaine

Coarse language

There is frequent coarse language in this movie, including several variations of the ‘fuck' word and occasional use of:

• shit
• bullshit
• arse
• bitch
• arsehole
• piss.

The movie's message

Fast Food Nation, a fictionalised adaptation of Eric Schlosser's controversial best-selling book, attempts to convey serious messages about American globalisation of fast foods and the manner in which fast foods are produced, from the standpoint that the industry manipulates, corrupts, intimidates and exploits people. Parents could discuss these issues and the broader issue of work based sexual harassment.