Rod Hill
Bleck
English 101
5/3/10

Go Ahead, Eat That Big Mac

We have heard the stories of fast-food meats which have fallen on the kitchen floor, are picked up and returned to the grill. Other reports claim that some meats are contaminated with bacteria such as e-coli. Upton Sinclair in The Jungle describes the meat that had “tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of germs.” The Lopez Meat Packing Plant, which processes hamburger and sausage patties for McDonald’s, is the subject of a video which seeks to show that McDonald’s meat is safe to eat. This video is of interest to the viewers because most of them have eaten at or will dine at one of McDonald’s restaurants.

The Lopez video appeals to viewers who are concerned with food safety when they dine out. At the opening of the video, a reporter hooks the viewers by telling them “you won’t believe what happens to this burger before it gets to your mouth.” Subsequently, the video focuses on the safety of the meat products and couples this with the sheer volume that is produced by the Lopez plant daily: five hundred thousand pounds of burgers and two hundred thousand pounds of sausage patties. The video gets the message across with background locations, props, camera use, and code words.

The background locations are an important part of this video. It begins and ends at a McDonald’s restaurant. It is clean and well-lighted, with happy customers and a busy crew. During the remainder of the video, the viewers are taken inside the Lopez processing facility. The viewer is treated to a bird’s-eye overview of the large, clean production floor. Next, they get closer views of the sparkling-clean conveyors, which are moving large numbers of both cooked and frozen patties. Portions of the conveyor system are automatically rejecting suspicious patties. The workers on the production floor are attired in their cleanroom smocks, and some are performing inspections. The video accomplishes its goal by emphasizing organization and cleanliness in both locations.

Props are used to get the point across. At the beginning of the video, the reporter sticks a loaded, juicy hamburger right in the viewer’s face. There are smiling children and busy McDonald’s employees behind the counter. Inside the Lopez factory, cleaned conveyors are shown with both fresh and cooked hamburgers and sausages. People props are also used to form the viewer’s opinion. An executive of the Lopez Company tells us about the volume and quality of the process, and about the daily internal and USDA inspections. Jose Santiago, the owner of seventeen McDonald’s restaurants, verifies the quality of the Lopez products. A woman stresses the positive impact of the processing plant on the state’s economy. She tells the viewers that the use of the meat benefits the local farmers. And throughout the video, the reporter’s narration keeps the story moving, reinforcing the positive tone.

The camera work helps to make the story convincing. The video starts with a wide shot of the factory floor, so we see the size and scope of the operation. There are a lot of close shots of the conveyor belts moving quickly with both cooked and frozen burger patties. To show the food safety concerns, there are shots of the workers’ foot bath, safety inspections, and burgers being rejected by a “metal detector.” With the relatively quick camera shots, the viewers get to see the cleanliness of the Lopez process, and they get an impression of the speed of it, too.

There are some code words that the Lopez video uses effectively to help persuade the viewer. The reporter and the Lopez representative tell us about the daily “inspections” which are performed internally and by the government. The factory is “clean.” The plant is shut down nightly, when a crew comes in and cleans everything. They speak of the “quality” checks. These consist of hourly taste tests, the front door footbaths, the discarding of substandard patties, and burger tests which are performed one hundred times per hour. The Lopez rep also says that their product is the “perfect” burger, confirmed by the franchise owner who says the patties are “the best there is.” The code words bolster the viewer’s confidence that their burger is safe for them to eat.

The Lopez video makes some convincing arguments for a quality hamburger. It goes a long way toward disproving the stories and rumors of foul meat reaching the counter. The video, with its images from the Lopez Meat Packing Plant, plus the positive testimony from our people props make it easy for the viewers to believe that the burgers they bite into are good, wholesome products. The viewers will remember this video the next time they’re in line ordering a Big Mac.