Consumerism in “White Noise” and “From Scratch”. What Netflix hits tell us about the future of food and groceries.
The Terrible Food Future We’re All Doomed To and how we can avert dystopian vision.
I decided to dive into two Netflix hits: “From Scratch” and “White Noise” as two striking grocery store scenes began to rouse my curiosity about how pop culture affects the next phase of our food.
A bit of escapism is at play here, and I mean true-life escapism, as egg prices hit all-time highs and surpass the federal minimum wage.
Today, country after country are adopting streaming services and new versions of Oreos, Kit Kats, and K — “pop” with a rapid force that forgets food’s subconscious nature and withdraws from a slow factory of benefits of traditional food styles. Dystopian grocery stores are a common trope in dystopian literature, film, and other forms of media. These stores are typically depicted as bleak, rundown, and bleak. They often reflect the state of the society they are in, usually suffering from poverty, scarcity or totalitarian control.
The Netflix hits’ utopian portrayal of grocery stores in dystopian settings serves as a commentary on the state of society the story is set in, often reflecting poverty, scarcity or lack of control individuals have over their own lives. We have to dive into depictions of dystopian grocery stores in fiction are a stylistic choice, they are not a reflection of reality or a common thing in our society, and should not be considered a reflection of real grocery stores.
The supermarket first appears 12 minutes in. There, amid endless merchandise and insipid loudspeaker announcements, the film sets the bloodlines of the mixed Midwestern family at its center. Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), a professor of Hitler studies at a prototypical liberal arts college, hunches over his shopping cart, explaining the makeup of his brood to an Elvis-obsessed colleague (Don Cheadle), while Jack’s scatterbrained wife, Babette (Greta Gerwig), tends to their four children, one of whom is seen licking an unopened box of Velveeta.
Around every corner, there are brands — more Cheerios, Pringles, Hi-C, and Brillo pads than one modest town could possibly need. The store’s color scheme favors eye-popping yellows and reds, evoking Warholian pop art with Acapulco Vibes. Signs advertise prices that seem quaint compared to today’s economy: strawberries for 59 cents per pound, a pack of bacon for $1.49. Inside the A&P’s walls, decisions are made, secrets are shared, and a daze takes over. Everything comes naturally in heaven.
White Noise is about the numbing excess of modern life: the rambling television sets, designer drugs, boundless junk food. Really, though, it’s about our fear of death. Jack and Babette milk these distractions to stave off such fear. When a black cloud dubbed an “airborne toxic event” hastens a temporary apocalyptic meltdown, nothing can possibly distract them enough. And yet, when the cloud passes, everyone returns to the comforts of the supermarket, where time only marches forward.
Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle in ‘White Noise’ | Courtesy of Netflix
Or what about all these lists and litanies of brands that pop up repeatedly? In the film, this translates into many scenes in a brightly colored supermarket with prominently displayed period-appropriate products, laundry detergents and milk, and particular types of gum. In the novel, we get periodic bursts in the text that become a weirdly specific little list.
At the end of the novel and the film Jack is in line again in the grocery store, watching people go through their business and look at the rich range of consumer products. “Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks,” he concludes. “The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. The cults of the famous and the dead.”
You might refer to another production or the book “White Noise” by Don DeLillo, which is a novel that deals with technology, consumer culture, and the media.
“White Noise” the novel doesn’t have specific references to food, and it’s not a prominent theme in the story. But, in general, the novel examines the way consumer culture affects the way we live our lives and experience the world around us. It also looks at the ways technology and the media shape our perceptions and understanding of reality.
It’s worth mentioning that I am a language model, and my knowledge cut-off is 2021, so I might not have information about recent releases or events.
“From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home” is a book written by Tembi Locke. It is a memoir that tells the story of her life and her experiences of love, food and identity. In the book, Tembi recounts her experiences of learning to cook from her Sicilian grandmother, and how food was used to connect her to her heritage and loved ones.
The book covers her journey of loss, love and self-discovery, as she reconnects with her heritage and her Sicilian-American identity through food, cooking, and family. The food described in the book is often authentic Sicilian dishes, such as pasta con le sarde and caponata, that her grandmother taught her to make.
In the book, Tembi also talks about the contrast between the food her grandmother taught her to make and the food she encounters in American grocery stores. She reflects on the differences between the two, and how the food in American grocery stores is often highly processed, and lacks the flavor and cultural significance of the traditional food she learned to cook.
Regarding “Corn dogs” specifically, is not mentioned in the book, and it’s not a traditional Sicilian dish, it’s a snack food commonly found in carnivals and fairs in the United States and other countries. It’s a hotdog coated in a cornmeal batter and deep-fried. We’ve known the magic of hotdogs and carnival fair food for decades. It’s now this small-town chef’s moment of his awe-scoped purchase was fully symbolic of the state of American food consumption:
Why are countries so quick to allow big conglomerates to control their food feed? It’s broadly known that shelf stability is a direct and short-term solution to climate change, price inflation, and blocked roads. Packaged foods are the solution — for now. Yes, they’ve led to tremendous and harmful waste in packaging, but in the meantime — they are the answer to the hunger problem. They are satiating. What is a road less traveled if a cracker and nut butter can flow down it for 3 months and the walk only takes days? It’s an immense shift to see how the global shift and the merchandising appeal of pop culture, and social media, are creating an almost irreversible landscape on processed and packaged food across the globe. Delight the sense, and serve the unreal. Take it or leave it. Our food should be less magical and do more magic.
