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Fast food nation《快餐帝国》(精讲之六)
[ 2007-10-24 10:46 ]

 

影片对白  Don't just hope. You can't sit back and hope. You have to do something. In a town like this, hope will kill you.

我观之我见   我相信人人都对生活、对世界有着美好的愿望。人人也都会对不好的事情表现愤怒和谴责。但是要把世界变得美好并不是希望和谴责就够了的,还需要切实的行动……

考考你   小试牛刀

 

7. Beat the shit out of

意思是“把某人打得落花流水,满地找牙”,见到有shit在内,大家应该知道这也是比较粗俗的讲法,要慎用。我们来看个例子:We're gonna beat the shit out of you!

8. Big deal

Big deal 本意是指“重要的事”,但用在讽刺的语气中则表示“So what? Who cares?有什么大不了的”。

9. Cut to

Cut to 本意是指拍片的时候转换到另一个镜头,例如:The camera cut to the sky.这里则表示“打住,插一下”,将谈话转换到另一件事情上。

文化面面观

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

 

Fast food nation 这部电影是根据 Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal这本书改编的。该书早在2001年就已经问世。但显然,还是影像的影响力要大,是电影让书更深入人心。

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is a book by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry.

Schlosser examines the history and growth of fast food restaurants in American culture. Schlosser argues that the fast food industry wields powerful economic - and therefore political - influence on American culture, and exploits that influence to increase profits at the expense of public health and the social conditions of its workers. In the process of making that argument, however, he provides an interesting portrait of the way fast food culture is a unique product of American history, related to the emergence of the automobile, the homogenization of corporate culture, changes in labour conditions, and of course, globalization. He also provides surprisingly respectful biographies of some of the "founding fathers" of fast food, including Carl Karcher, Ray Kroc, and others. The fast food industry, writes Schlosser, "has helped to transform not only the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, workforce, and popular culture".

Schlosser opens the book with the ironic delivery of a Domino's pizza to the "top secret" military base, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. He describes various high-tech capabilities of the base and its extensive defensive system, speculating that if the worst were to happen and the entire base were entombed in the mountain, anthropologists of the future would discover random fast food wrappers scattered amongst military hardware. Both, suggests Schlosser, give important clues about the nature of American society.

The book continues with an account of the evolution of fast food and how it coincided with the advent of the automobile. He explains the transformation from countless independent restaurants into a few uniform franchises. This shift led to a production-line kitchen prototype, standardization, self-service, and a change in marketing demographics: from teenager to family-oriented. Regarding the topic of child-targeted marketing, Schlosser explains how the McDonald's Corporation modeled the marketing tactics of The Walt Disney Company, which inspired the creation of advertising icons such as Ronald McDonald and his supporting characters. He also mentions the implementation of toys in McDonald's renowned 'Happy Meals' as an example of the issues presented in his proposed argument. The theory behind this shift to child-targeted marketing was that it would not only attract children but also their parents and grandparents as well. More importantly, it would instill brand loyalty in them, which would persist throughout adulthood through nostalgic associations to McDonald's. Its ills are discussed: the exploitation of children's naivety, trusting nature and that the average child watches 21 hours of television per week. This also includes 100,000 tv advertisements a year.

Schlosser states that corporate tax cuts that have compromised school funding have presented many corporations with the opportunity for sponsorship within those same schools. According to sources, 80% of the sponsored textbooks contain material that is biased in favor of the sponsors, and 30% of high schools offer fast foods in their cafeterias. Furthermore, high school student Mike Cameron was suspended from school for an incident on "Coke day"; during a promotional event, the student exhibited a Pepsi t-shirt while he and other students clad in red and white formed the word 'Coke' in the football field that was to be photographed aerially.

In his examination of the meat packing industry Schlosser finds that it is now dominated by casual, easily exploited immigrant labor and that levels of injury are among the highest of any occupation in the United States. Schlosser discusses his findings on meat packing companies IBP, Inc. and Kenny Monfort. Also, Schlosser retells the steps of meat processing, and notes several hazardous practices unknown to most consumers; for example, the practice of rendering dead pigs & horses and chicken manure into cattle feed. Schlosser notes that practices like these were responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease 疯牛病), as well as introducing dangerous bacteria, such as E. coli O157:H7 (大肠杆菌中的一种), into the food supply.

Schlosser notes that there are more robberies at fast-food restaurants than at banks, gas stations or convenience stores.

In the later section of the book, the fast food industry's role in globalization is discussed, linking increased obesity in China and Japan with the arrival of fast food. A summary of the McLibel case is included.

In later editions, Schlosser has added a final section, including reviews of his book, counters to some critics that emerged since first publication, and then discusses the effect that the threat of BSE had on the US Government’s policy towards cattle farming. He concludes that, given the swift, decisive and effective action that took place as a result of this interest and intervention, many of the problems documented in the book are solvable, given enough political will.

 

影片对白  Don't just hope. You can't sit back and hope. You have to do something. In a town like this, hope will kill you.

我观之我见   我相信人人都对生活、对世界有着美好的愿望。人人也都会对不好的事情表现愤怒和谴责。但是要把世界变得美好并不是希望和谴责就够了的,还需要切实的行动……

考考你   小试牛刀

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