Cartoon Wars: Here's What You Can Do With Your Egg McMuffin

Any irony to the fact that this crappy food and this stupid icon is considered America’s primary cultural export?

This is not a new point, but… looking at this guy seeming to contort Ron’s leg, it makes me think about how the Danish cartoons (simply) constituted a “tipping point” for Islamic frustration over more serious physical degradation, symbolized by Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Bagram….

Maybe McD’s shouldn’t have to be concerned about such things, but shouldn’t RMcD be fastened down so he can’t just be carted off?

As a slightly surreal clown character, isn’t RMcD essentially a 3-D manifestation of a cartoon?

There was a point in time where I was interested in the psychological effects of color.  Although there are many aesthetic and design conventions having to do with color, the research was inconclusive in relation to uniform psychological effects.  Still, there is something inherently sickly about that bright yellow and red.  And is there something “prison-ish” about those horizontal red stripes?

And what about the symbolism of the quintessential “slave wage customer service” uniform RMcD has on?  Here’s my frickin name tag.  Here’s my frickin order pad.  Here’s my frickin corporate logo.  (Isn’t Lahore, by the way, a major location for western telemarketing call centers?)

(image: Arif Ali/Reuters.  February 14, 2006.  Lahore, Pakistan.  Via YahooNews)