Every Egg's Dream - a short dissertation on Food as Friend

[dreamshark]

The controversy over McDonald's latest moronic billboard campaign is misplaced. No, it's not a statement one way or another in the ProLife/Choice wars. It's just one more shot in the extremely peculiar culture war dedicated to convincing consumers that Food is Your Friend. Food isn't just food - it's PEOPLE. Or maybe PETS (if you like pets better than people). And your friends LOVE to be eaten! Yes yes yes!!

I've been baffled by this continuing set of images for years. Friendly cartoon chickens and pigs smiling broadly as they beckon you into dining establishments devoted to feeding you pieces of chickens and pigs. Anybody remember the TV commercial from a few years back where a family with a hot grill set up in the park was running around calling for their missing hot dogs (which eventually popped out of the woods, smiling and eager to be barbecued)?

mle392 has unearthed the most ghastly image yet in this disturbing progression here

Where can it go from here???

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Remember the schmoos (?), thos edible, eager-to-please creatures in the old L'il Abner comics?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

As I recall Douglas Adams parodied the tendency to represent food as sentient some decades ago. It's not a new thing really.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it was new, just that it seems to be escalating.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

TV Funhouse, a Comedy Central loosely spun off of Robert Smigl's SNL skits, sometimes had "the anipals" go to the Sameas Restaurant, where all the animals dined on their own kind.

Sick, but it worked since they were all puppets.

(No indication what puppets eat.)

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

I'm strongly reminded of Laurie Winter's Egg Horror Poem.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

On the other hoof, there's these ads (http://www.chick-fil-a.com/#thecows) from Chick-fil-A.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

A bit tasteless, but at least this particular conceit makes some logical sense.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[carbonel]

Related to this has always been my unease about children's novels with sentient animals. The whole point of Charlotte's Web (the first one I remember encountering) is to keep this one particular pig from being turned into pork chops. But what makes him different from any of the other pigs on the farm, other than being lucky in his friends? I always thought it was cheating that most of the other characters in the book were valued for what they produced (fleece, eggs, etc.) rather than then they themselves being on the chopping block.

To me, what it comes down to is that if the animals are intelligent enough to converse amongst themselves, they shouldn't be food for us, tasty though they may be. And I can't decide if it's moral to write stories where such conditions obtain.