By Tonisha Johnson

Writer of the original work Fast Food Nation; Eric Schlosser’ findings are reworked into a fictional story that easily depicts the fast food world and all its falsehood.

Originally an assignment from Rolling Stone, Schlosser took his findings a few more steps further resulting in the New York Times best-seller Fast Food Nation; delving into the meat industry, immigration and chemical enhancement; Schlosser’ story may possibly grip the audience and cripple the fast food industry.

Your book [Fast Food Nation] was primarily investigative journalism. Was it ok how they fictionalize the story?

Eric Schlosser: I started about a year and a half after the book came out to set up a documentary. I really wanted a documentary made. I thought it would have been much more logical. And I think if it had been a documentary made it would have been a much more literal adaptation of the book. It could have had a lot of archival footage. For all kinds of reasons, it didn’t work out, the documentary. And one of the reasons it didn’t work out is, I liked the filmmakers I was meeting with but I didn’t trust the people behind them. I was meeting with filmmakers who were backed by various television networks. And even PBS has a relationship with the fast food industry. McDonalds is one of the biggest sponsors of Sesame Street and other television networks have these relationships so I pulled away from a documentary because I didn’t want the film to be a sellout or a compromise. And when I was approached to do a fictional film, it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t seem logical. Jeremy Thomas who is the producer and has the reputation for being a true independent; he raises all his money outside of Hollywood. I liked meeting him but I didn’t see where the film… which is a long way of saying that when Rick and I got together it was clear that if this was going to be a fictional film and a Rich Linklater film, this is gonna be totally different from the book. They were going to take the title of that book and the spirit of the book and just put aside the book. The film is about some lives of some people in a small town. And it’s just different but to me it’s just as valid. It’s a different way of looking at the same subject.

Fox Searchlight is a big distributor. Are you having any issues with companies outside the realm of that?

Eric Schlosser: Fox Searchlight is like the independent wing of the bigger movie studio and I have found that especially in the film business… is that the toughest thing to do is to get the film made. Cause when it’s made and it looks like it has potential then distributors will pick it up. Fox Searchlight was great but they had no creative control over what you see on the screen. And I’m not pure. You need to have big corporations. If you tried to not deal with corporations you’d have to live with solar power and grow your own food. Fast Food Nation was turned down by all the big New York publishers. The company that ended up publishing it was one of the last independent publishing houses; Houghton Mifflin. So it took a smaller independent company to do it. But as soon as it came out, the paper back rights were purchased by Harper Collins. So Harper Collins which is owned by News Corporation, which owns Fox… I had nothing to do with any of that. It’s the world we live in. as long as their trying to get people to see the film and as long as their trying to get people to read the book I can’t control any of the higher corporate stuff at all.

Journalism is fascinating, it takes you to places and meets people ordinarily you wouldn’t be introduced to. But as you, as journalist knows, writing is very lonely. What sparked you to address this issue? Did you have 4 hours of free TV time?

Eric Schlosser: lol. I got an assignment from Rolling Stone. I started like a year following the harvest in California and writing about migrant farm workers. And it was a very complicated story about illegal immigration in America; but I told a very complicated story about something very simple; strawberries. Every strawberry has to be picked by hand. And if you want a lot of strawberries you need a lot of hands. The way of telling a very complicated story about something we all can relate to. And I met with Rolling Stone and they said we want you to do for Fast Food what you did for strawberries. That was in 1997. Almost 10 years later that seems like a great idea but at the time I almost didn’t want to accept the assignment. Because I went to McDonalds I like hamburgers and I like french-fries. I didn’t want to be writing something that would put down something because this is what I and my friends ate. I told the editor that I’d think about it. And I went to the library and I started reading and I was amazed. I was amazed at how powerful this industry had become in a very brief period of time. I was amazed at how food is produced. At how work is structured and marketing. And what amazed me most of is that I had been eating this food for years and I didn’t know any of this. I was talking to friends of mine that was journalists and they didn’t know it. We’re all part of this. We’re all eating this and we don’t know anything about it.

I took the assignment because the subject seemed important. It seems like things were being deliberately hidden. I was incredibly curious to see what was going on. It was a big investigative piece. The chapter on the flavor industry came out of a random conversation that my friend had with a guy on an airplane. She was sitting next to this guy and he was drunk. He blurted out I make all the flavors for Burger King. You think those flavors come from the food but my company makes them. My friend was like what? This was my first book and I think when you’re writing a book one of two things should apply: the publishers are giving you so much money it’s beyond belief you don’t care about what you’re writing. That Britany Spears biography is going to pay for your kid’s education. That’s fine. Or you really find a subject you really care about and you can live with for a couple of years. And I knew I could spend a couple of years on this subject. I had no idea it would be a bestseller. I did it because I care about it and I had no clue when I had finished writing this book that it was six years later that people would still be talking about it. And you’d be interested in asking about it.

Do you know the impact of your book?

Eric Schlosser: I can honestly say I have no idea of what the impact of my book has been. I think about was going on in 1997 when I started the research and all this just seemed hidden. And certain subjects like obesity and marketing to children; like illegal immigration just weren’t being discussed. And almost 10 years later the conservative governor of Arkansas, who’s a republican is kicking the soda companies and fast food companies out of the schools. If you look at how well upper middle class people are eating they are eating very differently than 9, 10 years ago. Whole foods, organic production, personal trainers; there’s a totally different awareness about health fitness and about food. The thing that hasn’t changed and that really upsets me is that as upper middle class is rejecting fast food these companies are really targeting the poor. They’re targeting Latino communities, people of color; and their following the basic strategies tobacco industries did. They’re trying to persuade people in China to start eating hamburgers which people in China have never done. The dollar menus that are so prevalent in low income communities… there aren’t any salads on that dollar menu. There are cheap hamburgers and cheeseburgers and their making their profit on big Coke’ with the hamburgers and cheeseburgers. I don’t think the fast food people are deliberately trying to make people sick. I just think they’re trying to make money but their going about it the wrong way. I disagree with their business practices. It so much more interesting for me to see how really nice people become complicate in a system that does things that aren’t nice. That’s the story of this country.

Fast Food Nation has the same canvas as ‘United 93’ and ‘Death of a President’. Why is it that films where the background comes to life are so attractive to people?

Eric Schlosser: I think there is a great tradition in fiction and film of realism. Of trying to show people what’s happening. It’s almost like holding a mirror up and in this case and taking the lives of people you’d never probably see, Mexican immigrants, who don’t speak English even in the film and showing this reality. There is another tradition that’s been much more popular up until recently which is escapism. Films about superheroes and films about aliens with special effects; some are good and I think some are worth seeing but its escape from reality; its fantasy, its diversion, its… so many of these main stream Hollywood films are carefully… same way as fast food… carefully and scientifically designed to make you feel you good and make you wanna see the film 3 times. Fast Food Nation is not that film. It was not carefully designed to make you feel good. Hopefully it will help you feel something. It will help you think and feel and try to show you what’s happening. Some guy coming down from the sky and trying to tell you that everything is ok… I don’t see that happening right now.