The Last Happy Meal
The Grim Reaper claimed many famous victims in 2022. People who defined an era through their character and accomplishments like Queen Elizabeth, Pele, Vivienne Westwood, Barbara Walters and Pope Benedict XVI. However there was one more in my hometown: the death of the local branch of McDonald’s on December 31st. I know not very many will mourn it.
It wasn’t exactly the best choice for lunch and the only people who might get away with a date at McDonald’s are teenagers. Though Wes Anderson can make adults look cool in a place like this, dragging plates overloaded with French fries, Big Macs and milk shakes. I can’t remember the last time I bought something at McDonald’s. What I do remember is running into families with children or teenagers on their way to the cinema a few floors above it.
However appalling a Sunday family lunch at a place like that might seem, it made sense as a part of a cultural shift that took place slowly but firmly in the last decade. McDonald’s truly symbolised someting beyond nutritional value. It created a sense of belonging to something better, prosperous and exciting compared to what they had at home. That’s why people in countries freshly introduced to capitalism after the fall of the Iron Curtain associated democracy with consumerism, fast food, H&M and Ikea instead of culture, critical thinking and responsibility for your choices.
It laid the foundation for everything that’s wrong with them nowadays. They used Communist legacy as an excuse for inability and reluctance to deal with deep-rooted corruption and historical revisionism. They built colossal shopping malls, cathedrals of a new age of liberation from the shackles of a system that denied them the right of free speech only to find out now that they’re free to do so they really got nothing meaningful to say. Instead it’s their credit cards that do all the talking. Especially during discount season.
When I went to Berlin with a friend we went to Dunkin’ Donuts instead to the Bode Museum. Average people are easy to please with simple pleasures. You can’t eat the bust of Nefertiti, and donuts get your endorphine through the roof though it soon comes crashing down. It’s easy to get swept away by American temples of sugar and carbs when you’re a kid.
They’re advertising a lifestyle fantasy that makes you look like someone who barely escaped the Weight Watchers torture chamber. We know it’s not good for us, but it’s sprinkled with tasty shit and wrapped in recyclable packaging that won’t melt the calories away but it will certainly do the trick with your guilty conscience. It’ s a thing of identity: we want the sweatshop fashion, cheeseburgers and supersized frappucinos. It’s a thing of identity.
It makes you feel that American dream is within reach no matter where you are. And now it’s gone, so you’ll have to go abroad for a Happy Meal. That was its original appeal. Now we go back behind the cultural iron curtain again. Russia had to invade Ukraine for McDonald’s to close its doors in Moscow. Here, their local carrier got into such a mess with bank debts that it had to tank sooner or later.
It’s not really the first time something like that occurs. A sports centre has been a construction site for 30 years already and the new Mariott is still waiting for its opening due to corrupt politics behind the investor. I don’t care about politics as long as they don’t mess with McFlurries. I don’t want kids to think their peers elsewhere are cool because they got access to all that. Trust me, they will.
Starbucks is also a global chain that wants to be a cool coffee shop but it’s too big, too commercial and kills the simple pleasure of the ritual. Their matcha lattes and flavoured cappucinos are made for laptop-wielding hipsters. A whole world of fast gastronomy that’s out of reach and we’re once again stuck with grilled meat and pizza that’s been a staple for as long as I can remember. It’s not about food at all. It’s about what it stands for. Just like the first multiplex cinema that charged absurd sums for popcorn but it’s good to know it’s there because they occasionally screen operas and ballets from the Royal Opera in London in between superhero franchises and the occasional movie in a language that’s not English.
The enthusiasm back then was palpable because people were sick of an improvised local cinema that played endless reruns of a few Hollywood movies to the extent that one day there was a new graffiti saying “enough with Titanic already”. There’s only so much times you can see the movie before you start feeling like the cinema is the second class deck and you’re drowning in regret you did it. Along came Netflix and resuscitated the home cinema with an infinite choice of content. That made a night at the multiplex even more interesting because it would keep you guessing if you’ll be the only one showing up for The Nutcracker.
Consumerist culture is layered in a way where it begins from the affordable basics that appeal to the middle-class where packaging is more attractive than the nutritional infomation on it. On the other hand we have Michelin restaurants with sommeliers that turn a dinner into an edible art performance. The same applies to the things we wear. There’s Gucci and and then there’s affordable high street equivalents inspired by Harry Styles.
You can’t afford Jo Malone? There’s Jo Malone’s special fragrance collection at Zara. It applies to every other product, turning consumerism into the ultimate form of lifestyle democracy. But it’s only inclusive as long as you have enough money to spend. It reiterates the fact that modern society is primarily structured through economy instead of various forms of identity which we are constantly told it’s all about. It’s something I already adressed in other articles so I won’t elaborate it further.
A notorious postmodern version of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper that used to hang in Michael Jackson’s bedroom at the Neverland ranch is the perfect illustration of what the world has turned to since it was created for the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in 15th century Milan. Unlike the famous original here we see Jackson in the middle, surrounded by historical figures like Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Charlie Chaplin or Elvis instead of Da Vinci’s apostles.
However silly the whole idea might seem it makes perfect sense. Celebrities are venerated as modern gods and significant historical figures play the supporting act. With the difference that in the new scenario you’re more likely to find Jesus sharing a Happy Meal with his devoted disciples and Judas is the vegan partybreaker. Seeing things from a certain historical distance, this might be what former Communist countries fought for. A seat at this very table, the ultimate affirmation of belonging to a world free of ideological persecution.
But was it truly worth fighting for? A culture that disposes its waste far away from its glittery coasts somewhere in the Indian ocean, nurtures hoarding and suffocates our moral compass with shopping we need to keep up with the cool kids? It gently unscrews our brains from their ability for compassion and empathy. They turned back the evolutional clock and before we knew it we were once again reduced to mammals. Only this time with smartphones and credit cards. Like Kate Hudson in The Glass Onion we might actually believe sweatshops are all about sweaters. That’s why the exodus of western brands in Russia is so compelling.
Can we survive without all those commodities we got used to in the meantime? Can we imagine a world without Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos? That’s a question each one of us might answer in a different way. Once you get a taste of all this, you’ll compromise your principles and privacy to stay in the loop. Like a drug, you’ll keep indulging in it even when it turns against you. We’ll certainly survive without McDonald’s. It’s the symbolism of losing it that’s indicative of a bigger picture.
My aunt told me once about her experience at a student excursion in Russia. Young Russians were so fascinated by her clothes they wanted to buy the jeans she was wearing. Her colleague sold someone a box of chewing gums for a whole cutlery set. It spoke volumes about the needs of lower middle class. Svetlana Aleksejevitsch wrote about Russians dreaming of Yugoslavian furniture. It’s simultaneously entertaining and disappointing but true. In the mind of the average consumer Good Friday isn’t in April but November. If you know what exactly I’m talking about your preferred altar of worship might actually be a cash register.
