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Eric Schlosser and Richard Linklater are eating my french fries. How dare they?
No, I'm not possessive, just a little surprised. The duo is out promoting their film adaptation of Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal." That piece of long-form journalism sold more than 1.4 million copies and was a searing indictment of the fast food industry.
And now they're on the second cup of fries — at a fast food establishment.
But we aren't at McDonald's, the company that takes the brunt of the criticism in the book for being the driving force behind the all-consuming world of cheap eats. We are several doors down at New York Burger Co., one of the new wave of healthier burger joints that began sneaking into strip malls after the success of the book in 2001.
The fries (crisp and yummy, by the way) aren't the story anyway. Rather, they're just the first piece in an elaborate jigsaw puzzle that, once complete, reveals a harrowing picture of the American way of life.
All the issues are there. From illegal immigration to animal cruelty to labor practices to child obesity to consumer practices. The reach is all-encompassing, and film director Linklater (he co-wrote the screenplay with Schlosser, too) manages to weave the varied stories into a film that has the feel of Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic."
But "Fast Food Nation" leaves viewers without any sense of hope — and repulsed by the thought of ordering a burger.
Schlosser and Linklater (he directed "School of Rock," and "Dazed and Confused," among others) have been working on the film for four years, and it shows. They finish each other's sentences and one is never too far behind the other when the conversation seamlessly jumps from topic to topic.
Follow along as we chat over fries.
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FILM VERSUS BOOKS
asap: Are you expecting the movie to have an even greater impact on the whole fast food industry than the book did?
Linklater: I don't think so. I don't think movies have the impact of a book. I'd be hard pressed to name a fictional film that changed things. I think they reflect things that are changing. But I think "The Jungle" (by Upton Sinclair) changed things. I think "Silent Spring" (by Rachel Carson) changed things. I think "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (by Harriet Beecher Stowe) changed things. You can look throughout history and find a lot of books — I think Eric's book changed things, I hope.
Schlosser: I'll put it back at you. I think the film "Grapes of Wrath" really went into people's heads and even left a big impact on the culture.
Linklater: But it was depicting something at that point that was almost in the past. By 1941 or '40
Schlosser: But I would keep going and I would say "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." Don't you think?
Linklater: Oh, I know a movie that actually did change things: "Philadelphia."
Schlosser: Oh sure.
Linklater: Tom Hanks dying of AIDS. So much of America thought they didn't know a gay person. Even though they do they thought there weren't gay people in their world. To see Tom Hanks actually suffer, die, be a human. I think that rose a certain consciousness. In a fictional realm.
Schlosser: I think it's too much to expect any one piece of writing or any film to change anything, but if it leaves a mark, if it leaves an impact.
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YUM
Linklater: (Holding up a well-done fry) My favorite part of the french fries, a little crisp one like that.
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FINGER LICKIN' GOOD
asap: Your book has had an effect on the way we think about fast food; it's forced the companies to adjust. And now New York just announced they intend to ban trans fats from foods.
Linklater: I think that's great. Denmark did it, you know (in 2003).
Schlosser: It's an amazing coincidence that on the day that they were having their first public hearings, KFC suddenly announced that they are going to get rid of their trans fats.
asap: I wonder how the fried chicken will taste?
Schlosser: I can guarantee they're going to taste just fine.
Linklater: In Denmark with their pastries there was at first a lot of resistance because the whole government said no, but now no one even knows the difference. I think I'm for legislation of that kind, when there's a clear healthy alternative that doesn't cost — even if it does cost more.
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YUM, PART TWO
Schlosser: I'm starting on yours. There just weren't anymore long ones in my packet.
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COG IN THE MACHINE
asap: In the film, everyone's in some way part of a system they can't escape. The illegal immigrants' life in the slaughterhouse might be the most revolting, but it's the transformation of the marketing executive (Greg Kinnear) from being gung-ho about his new job to becoming a beaten down cog in the unstoppable machine that's most eye-opening.
Linklater: Everybody in the movie is sitting on some kind of insecurity and he's as insecure as anyone even though he's living this middle class life.
Schlosser: It's also about how really nice, really well meaning people become complicit in systems that don't do nice things. That's much more the truth of how things work in the world than four bad guys in a room plotting and scheming our downfall.
Linklater: I never believed that until our current administration.
Schlosser: That's the exception that broke the rule.
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YUM PART THREE
Schlosser: These fries are good, they really are good.
Linklater: I like that they don't have trans fats.
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DARK DAYS
asap: Couldn't you have come up with a happy ending?
Schlosser: It's got a dark ending but these are dark days.
Linklater: It would've been untruthful to our characters in the story. But it would also — it lets the audience off the hook. It would've been like Al Gore walking out of "An Inconvenient Truth" saying I'm glad Al's on it. Al's got it taken care of I don't have to think about it. ... It puts it on the viewer as citizen to make their choices, to realize your choices kind of matter. That we're this living organism and we all have to do our part.
Eric and I share this thought — it's not going to happen at the government level, it's not going to happen. Corporate isn't going to police themselves to be more healthy. It's gotta happen really at a consumer demand level. In fact, that's when things can really change. Our system, that's really the only freedom in it.
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Howie Rumberg is an asap reporter in New York. | 
