# Fast Food Nation - how did they make it without harming animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 3, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250 "2011-08-03T01:07:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/21 "2011-08-03T21:21:30Z")
I’m not questioning anything and I did not say one word about morality or legality. I said I found it hard to believe someone can’t see the difference between documentary footage & a fictional film. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/22 "2011-08-03T21:56:21Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Well, in the classic _[Cannibal Holocaust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal_Holocaust)_, animals were killed. > > From [IMDB.com trivia page for the film](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078935/trivia): As I understand it it’s because of films like that that the Humane Society has their seal of approval system in place. Maybe not that film in particular, but ones like it. So, two “steps” of distance between that film and what we’re talking about: fiction vs. documentary and 30 years of changes in what people find acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/23 "2011-08-03T23:05:28Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I had no problem with seeing it, in fact I think showing it was very eye opening. I also think that showing how illegals are treated was amazingly corrupt, I loved the HR guy being a dick to that poor mexican woman who’s husband was hurt badly on the job and fired for using meth. > > The HR scene showed the compassion that most HR departments give, the only difference was they had an interpreter tell the lady that her husband was out of a job AND his back was hosed. > > Talk about treating people like worthless, replaceable parts. I want to watch this movie now based on this description. How extensive is the discussion of labor exploitation in the film? Are you talking a five minute clip or is it a significant part of the documentary? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/24 "2011-08-03T23:07:52Z")
Quoth **Stink Fish Pot** : > [@](#): > > Like I said, I didn’t think you were permitted to intentionally hurt an animal in a movie. I remember reading somewhere of someone getting into hot water because they killed some rats - REAL rats as part of the story. You’re probably thinking of _The Abyss_– The rats weren’t killed on screen, but they were shown breathing a liquid on-screen, and that may have led to health problems for them later. And the only hot water they got into was that various animal rights groups raised a stink about it. That said, I imagine that most animal rights groups would _not_ raise a stink about a documentary showing that real slaughterhouses look pretty gross. In fact, that’s a message that many of them try to get out themselves. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/25 "2011-08-04T07:15:34Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Do you honestly not see the difference between intentionally killing something for the sole purpose of making a movie, and filming something that is already being killed for documentary purposes? Really? You know there are tons of war documentaries that show humans being killed, yes? Yes. I understand that you might think I’m sitting in the front seat on the short bus, but that’s not it. You not being able to understand what I’m asking in this thread is the real problem. **Fast Food Nation** is a movie I saw on cable. It was not presented as a documentary, but rather as a regular movie with regular stars. Look it up on IMDB. It may have had documentary footage (as it clearly did), but that footage fit seamlessly with the movie. In fact, I believe the paid actors were in many of the gutting scenes, which made me ask this question in the first place. I don’t recall anything in the movie tipping the viewer off to the kill floor scenes. So when they appeared, I didn’t know it was real footage, but rather part of the movie itself, made for the movie. I thought it looked real, and it turns out the reason it looked real is because it was real. The movie makers added the real footage with the movie, and I didn’t see anything flashing at the bottom of the scenes saying “documentary scenes you are seeing were shot in real processing plant!” If you have seen it, you know what I’m talking about, but if you haven’t, rent it sometime and you will see it has the look and feel of a regular Hollywood movie, not of a documentary. So yes, to answer your (and Erdosain’s concerns - and anyone else’s) that I DO understand the difference between the idea of a documentary and what is permitted to be shown and a regular movie. :rolleyes: Let it go already. I won’t address this question again. \*\*Chronos \*\*said: > [@](#): > > You’re probably thinking of The Abyss-- The rats weren’t killed on screen, but they were shown breathing a liquid on-screen, and that may have led to health problems for them later. And the only hot water they got into was that various animal rights groups raised a stink about it. I believe you are right. It was quite a while ago, and I remember thinking to myself “WTF? It’s a rat.” \*\*olivesmarch4th \*\*asks: > [@](#): > > I want to watch this movie now based on this description. How extensive is the discussion of labor exploitation in the film? Are you talking a five minute clip or is it a significant part of the documentary? I want to say up front that I don’t believe this movie is actually a documentary. If anything, I’d say it is a docudrama. It was based on a real book that attacked the greed of Corporate America, the hypocrisy of the government in general, the hopelessness of trying to change things, the plight of the illegal alien (mexicans in this case), and how the ugly machine continues to roll. Based on the responses here, I don’t get a sense that many people have seen it, so unless you want me to give you specific information that contains spoilers, I won’t. What I can say is that the movie is made up of a number of seemingly unrelated threads that are all touched by the fictional company UMP (I think it stood for United Meat Processors, or something like that). There was a thread about a corporate executive sent out to UMP headquarters to investigate how feces could be getting into the meat. Another thread focuses on a couple of mexican families making it across the boarder, the “underground railroad” set up to get these people to different towns that have a need for illegal workers, and how their experience works out for them. Another thread focuses on the small towns and local area impacted by the plant and the fast food chain (Mickey’s) that the movie is more or less focused on. There are a couple other stories going on, but these particular people and stories rarely if ever interact. There may be a tangential meeting of two people (the executive of Mickey’s orders a burger from one of the small town teenagers that happens to work there), but that’s the level of interaction I’m talking about. In the scene I described with the HR rep, one of the main characters in the mexican immigration plot line is injured at the plant. At the hospital, a blood test finds that the worker was taking meth, so he loses his job. It’s a very powerful scene, because by the time you get to this part of the movie, you realize how disposable these people are to UMP. I thought it was a very good movie, and would urge everyone to watch it. In the past few days I’ve done some research on the movie, and it was partially made by an activist group called [www.participate.org](http://www.participate.org) (I think. I’m pulling from memory) **Dallas Jones** , thank you for answering my question about waste products and how they are managed. The cow is quite a useful animal, isn’t it? I still find it amazing that someone figured out how to make Jell-o from ground up bone, hoof, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250/26 "2011-08-04T11:36:44Z")
Well, I owe you an apology. Because _Fast Food Nation_ is a non-fiction book, I assumed that Fast Food Nation the movie would be a documentary along the same lines. Checking [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation_(film)), I see that it actually was a Richard Linklater feature starring Fez and Avril Lavigne and a full cast. (Of course, that same Wikipedia page also states that the abattoir scenes were authentic, but that’s neither here nor there.) So, anyway, I apologize for casting aspersions on your cognitive abilities, when really it was mine that weren’t working. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fast-food-nation-how-did-they-make-it-without-harming-animals/591250.md?page=1)