The sign of the burger : McDonald's and the culture of power

I didn't want to remain a hick from the mountains ... In my cultural naivete I saw McDonald's as a place somehow where modern culture capital could be dispensed. Keeping these memories in mind as years later I monitored scores of conversations about the Golden Arches in the late 1990s, it became apparent that McDonald's is still considered a marker of modern identity.

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"A burger is never simply a burger." This is a case study of the capacity of neocolonial giants like Disney, Nike, Coca Cola, and, in particular, McDonald's to ingratiate themselves in worldwide markets and achieve cultural hegemony by promoting an ideology of markets. When the Golden Arches first took root in rural East Tennessee, they seemed a signifier of progress, a validation to customers that they were not hicks. Thirty years later, to wide acclaim, French sheep farmers dismantled a half-completed "McShithouse" (as one Web site wag put it). Examining this love-hate dialectic in a half-dozen provocative essays, Kincheloe (education, Brooklyn College) is on firmer ground providing information gleaned from chatlines like McSpotlight and informal interviews ("improvisational ethnography," he cheekily calls the method) than when employing postmodernist theories of hyperreality. A full reference section is provided for those wishing to learn more about Hamburger U. propaganda techniques, Asian ad campaigns, or aggressive strategies to fend off criticism of its cuisine and labor policies, including "McLibel suits." A section entitled "Falling Arches" gleefully delineates various promotional fiascos (including the Arch Deluxe burger) that cost CEO Michael Quinlan his job in 1998. Academic collections at all levels. J. B. Lane Indiana University Northwest

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In addition to being at the center of the fast-food industry, McDonald's seems to have become something of a publishing phenomenon. Hard on the heels of Jennifer Talwar's Fast Food, Fast Track and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal comes this offering from Kincheloe (education, Brooklyn Coll.; coeditor, Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood). While Talwar considered the local, positive aspects of employment at McDonald's for ambitious immigrants, Kincheloe returns to the Evil Empire theme: McDonald's is a poor but extremely powerful symbol of American culture abroad. This is, of course, not a new argument, and Talwar's unpolished writing style and tendency toward broad generalizations (McDonald's seems to be a catchall for everything that is bad about America) are sophomoric. The only whopper here is the price. Not recommended.-Ellen D. Gilbert, Princeton, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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