Falling arches: “McDonald’s is under fire all over the world — literally. With restaurant bombings and shutdowns on the rise, can the fast-food conglomerate withstand the heat of global anti-Americanism?” The icon is readily transmuted into a target of the various species of contempt for what it signifies; ubiquitous brand recognition has its costs.
“In many parts of the world if people can’t reach the embassy, there’s always a McDonald’s,” says James L. Watson, a Harvard professor of anthropology who studies McDonald’s, particularly its function as a “worldwide political target.”
Fast-food bombings began after the Cold War, when opposition political groups — whether it was Chilean splinter group FPMR/D or the Greek Fighting Guerrilla Formation — started to focus more on the sources of “cultural power,” Watson says: “to questions of cultural imperialism as opposed to rather old-fashioned forms of military imperialism.” Salon
Starbucks beware…
Related:
- Bomb in Indonesian McDonald’s kills three AP
- Razor found in McDonald’s pie AP
- McDonald’s chairman to retire soon AP [via Salon]
