Shock and Dismay

More than just a burger...

February 22, 2009

It’s 1:42 in the morning and I just got done watching Fast Food Nation.  I ate some vegan food for dinner about 5 hours ago and feel like I could throw it all up.  That movie was revolting.  But true.  It depicted things that I always knew were true, but just never acknowledged the extent to which they were true….make sense?!

So unusual that this film was approached from an unbiased perspective and I can appreciate that.  It didn’t seem excessively gruesome, persuasive, or one-sided as compared to other films I’ve seen.  All aspects of the industry are shown in fair light.  Immigrants trying to make a living (and the struggle that presents in and of itself) the corporate interests in profits, and all the steps in between that seem unavoidable and inevitable, even though I know they’re not.  It’s a cycle of  getting money to live and living to make money, in the most desperate set of circumstances imaginable.

At the end of the movie, the cows had their skins pulled off, very bloody, making me cringe, I actually closed my eyes for a few moments.  I know the purpose of these films is typically to tug at your emotional side, making the viewer feel uncomfortable, yet this film was right on the border of emotional opinion and moral truth. I wish it were as simple as an unbelievable horror movie come to life, but sadly, it’s real life becoming unbelievable for everyone involved…
I am so disturbed right now that I can’t even think about sleeping.  Maybe it’s because I’m still in club mode from last night, I don’t know.  All I know I was not ready for bed yet after my little cousins fell asleep.  So I decided to watch a movie.  Little did I know what I was getting in to.  We went to Cousins on Ice, then to Water Tower Place for some shopping and got cute matching tank tops in Hollister!  We grabbed a train to the Chicago Diner and chowed down.  I finally got to show them some delicious vegan food, per their requests from me talking about it all the time!  So good!  A great green drink, Mac and Cheeze, a Radical Reuben and of course, they got to try those ridiculously good shakes that I love!  We split a chocolate chip cookie dough one!  I had about four sips, and saved the rest in Rob’s freezer for later next week!  They were stuffed and we joked about being rolled out like cheese wheels!  The size of Montana!  All is good when you’re little OMNI cousins are gung-ho for vegan nachos and lovin’ every bite!  I’d say overall tonight was amazing, but the movie was so sad!
I just feel disturbingly awake, and in tons of shock and dismay… dot, dot, dot….please tell me I’m not the only one to feel this way after watching this!