Quick – find Paraguay on a map. If you can’t, or if you don’t own a map, you might find that the lattes at McDonald’s are more to your liking than some snooty cafe where you have to pretend to be intellectual.
The latest advertisements from the hamburger chain shows either a pair of women or a pair of men, throwing off the trappings of intellectualism supposedly required by the coffeehouse scene because they’re now free to get their lattes elsewhere. “I can shave this thing off my face!” one guy exclaims, gesturing at his goatee. “Now we don’t have to listen to jazz all day long!” the ladies squeal.
Feminists are decrying the ad with the two women as setting back feminism 30 years, painting the women as dumb poseurs, and buying into the attitude in the US right now of just being “real folks” as demonstrated by Republican VP hopeful Sarah Palin.
And while I’m no fan of Starbucks and the “coffee culture” they espouse, I’m concerned about the fact that it’s suddenly cool to be dumb. Not knowing where Paraguay is isn’t something to be proud of. Yet the culture wars in the US that are interwoven with the presidential race in that country seem to be crossing over to other parts of society. With Barack Obama pegged an elitist intellectual, US society seems to be dividing itself into intellectuals and “real folks”.
In terms of food culture, this could be the beginning of a backlash against food elitism, especially with the current US economy not set to get better for some time to come. With people already complaining that food prices are too high, those same folks are more likely to head to places like McDonald’s to get “fancy” or “premium” items where they’re inevitably cheaper.
What this also means is that sales of “real folk” food items like factory white bread, boxed mac and cheese and generally cheaper supermarket brands will go up, and foods made by hand by artisan bakers, cheesemakers and butchers, as well as fresh local produce, will likely go down. Even with health scares like the recent listeria outbreak here in Canada at Maple Leaf foods, if the economy tanks, consumers are going to select cheap items despite issues of quality, especially if they’re being sold a “real folks” spin long with their bologna.
The ads play to a common snobbery that is prevalent in coffeehouses and coffee chains, and sure, those places can sometimes be grating and pretentious. But being dumb is not something to aspire to either, especially when it comes to making safe, healthy food choices.
September 25, 2008 at 6:46 pm
A backlash against food elitism is one thing but I have to say that coming from a long line of “real folks” that the food was always fantastic. BOth my parents come from rural farm families that thought Hockey Night in Canada was culture but both my Grandmother’s could have written Michael Pollan’s thesis for In Defence of Food. They were stellar cooks who make every thing from scratch everyday. I’d happily see people go back to that kind of folksy basic.
September 25, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Err, weren’t regular folks drinking coffee (okay, not fancy coffee, but still) long before coffee became a marker of elitism?
And to take a leaf out of Stephen Harper’s book, most people (especially corporate types) buying coffee at Starbucks don’t care about appearing intellectual or not. They just want caffeine, and aside from the price difference, the reason they’re going to Starbucks for it instead of McDonald’s is that at Starbucks your clothes don’t smell like burgers when you step outside again.