"The Soil, the Wine, the Grape": Wine as an Experience in Bottle Shock by Christina Polge Bottle Shock is a 2008 dramedy following the “Judgement of Paris,” a blind taste test in which Californian winemakers prove themselves to French wine connoisseurs. The film follows Stephen Spurrier, British wine vendor with a shop in Paris, travelling to Napa Valley to collect wine for his blind taste test. He begins with the notion that Californian wines could not possibly be as sophisticated as French ones, but his preconceptions are consistently proven wrong by his experiences in Napa Valley. Jim Barrett, the winemaker at Chateau Montelena, is initially concerned about the contest because he believes Europeans want to humiliate American winemakers. However, his son, Bo, enters the winery’s bottles in the contest anyway and they win, surprising everyone except Spurrier. Through its depiction of wine, Bottle Shock argues that wine should be not an isolated judgment but an experience of community, religion, and desire. Bottle Shock’s portrayal of the community in Napa Valley illustrates that an essential part of winemaking is the communal atmosphere that surrounds it, one that focuses less on profit and more on dedication. Everyone is equal when they experience wine, so they should be equal in its preparation as well. The emphasis on wine as a communal experience is clear in Napa Valley because of the prevalence of the winemaking industry. When discussing the contest, Jim Barrett says, “I don’t know about you, but one thing I’ve learned around here is that if one person succeeds, we all succeed.” They have a community-focused view of their business because they do not care about wine solely for its profits. It is not about a single winery’s success. It is about maintaining a sacred experience. The emphasis on wine as a communal experience is clear in Napa Valley because of its emphasis on the winemaking industry as a community, an integral part of the wine drinking experience. The focus and care that winemakers give to their field of work shows the sanctity of it, demonstrating that both preparing and consuming wine should be treated like a religious practice. Gustavo Brambila, Chateau Montelena’s foreman who is secretly making his own wine, angrily reminds Jim Barrett how sacred wine is. He says, “You people, you think you can just buy your way into this… The cultivation of the vine… is a religion that requires pain and desire and sacrifice.” By calling Jim Barrett and the winemaking community “you people,” Brambila creates a divide between himself and those who take the ability to create wine for granted. He specifically critiques the influence that money has, saying “you think you can just buy your way into this,” speaking of privileged people’s ability to decide their own capability without actual qualification. Much like any other feast, winemaking is more than the physical creation of the product. The process is sacred and should be worshipped in its own way. Spurrier’s language consistently reflects this reverence. In a voiceover reflecting on his experience in Napa Valley and what he learned, he says, “It all begins with the soil, the vine, the grape.” He lists these elements in order, echoing the simplistic language of creation stories. By narrowing down the product to the origins, the process becomes magical. Overall, the devotion to wine that winemakers in Bottle Shock hold shows that wine itself is its own religion, an experience that should be honored as sacred to all those involved. Not only is the intimacy of consuming wine a religious experience, it is also one full of desire. Sam and Gustavo’s short-lived sexual relationship started because of their shared connection over wine. They admire each other for their shared passion for wine, which eventually transforms into desire. The community they have formed thanks to winemaking intensifies into perhaps the most intense human connection possible. Moreover, scenes filmed in the vineyard are framed in such an intimate way that links the process of winemaking clearly to seduction. As Jim Barrett picks a grape in Figure 2, the camera zooms in on his finger as he caresses it before pulling it off the vine and gripping it gently. The music is also romantic, simply accentuating the comparison between wine and sensuality. This reflects another aspect of wine’s multifaceted nature: sexuality. Ultimately, when wine is appreciated as an experience, it opens the consumer up to other experiences including desire. Ultimately, Bottle Shock is a love letter to wine and its power that transcends the impermanence of taste. It is a testament to the feast in that it is a form of acceptance, knowledge, and connection. The film reinforces the tradition of winemaking, while also introducing new ways to honor its sanctity. In appreciating wine as a holistic experience, Bottle Shock shows that it is community, religion and desire all tangled up in one bottle, sometimes even one sip. Despite the distinct differences between Paris and Napa Valley, both communities come together to celebrate drinking wine as something more than simply getting drunk. Wine is an experience, just like every other feast. The feast, which is wine in this case, is not just an isolated event. It is a way of living life. Bottle Shock. Dir. Randall Miller. Perf. Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Freddy Rodriguez. Freestyle, 2008. DVD

Food’s Role in Reinvention in Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Amirah Jiwa The opening of the cinematic interpretation of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s captures Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly nibbling on a Danish pastry, paper coffee cup in hand as she stands on a deserted Fifth Avenue, gazing longingly through the window panes of ‘Tiffany’s’. Clad in layered pearls, a black cocktail dress with her highlighted hair perfectly coiffed, this iconic scene gives the classic its title and serves as the perfect introduction for the protagonist: a country “hillbilly” turned New York cafe society girl, who finds calm and peace in the “quietness and the proud look” of the jeweller, Tiffany & Co. Most analyses of the transformation that Holly Golightly undergoes focus on her fashion choices or mannerisms, but a closer examination of the use and significance of food adds another dimension to Holly’s remaking. As the storyline progresses, Holly’s past is slowly uncovered, the key reveal coming with the arrival of Doc Golightly, Holly’s estranged husband. He reveals that ‘Holly’ was “Lula Mae Barnes” until “she married [him]” after Doc had caught her and her brother, Fred, “stealing milk and turkey eggs” outside his house. Despite all the differences between his ‘Lula Mae’ and our ‘Holly,’ Doc focuses in on the change in her figure with constant references to her weight, highlighting the importance of food in Lula Mae’s transformation into Holly. He describes Lula Mae as having become “positively fat” while she lived under roof, as all the housework was done by their daughters so she “could just take it easy,” and when he first re-meets Holly exclaims, “Gosh. Lula Mae. Gee, honey, don’t they feed you up here? You’re so skinny.” In his goodbyes once Doc realises that Holly will not return to Texas with him, points out her weightless again, urging Paul to, “Keep an eye on her, will you, son? At least see she eats something once in a while.” Doc’s observations bring to light the fact that Holly’s transformation is directly linked to her choice in dismissing sustenance in favour of sophistication, something that is reinforced with every inclusion of food and drink in the film. For a film with ‘breakfast’ in the title wherein the principal character earns her living though the collection of the “$50 for the powder room” she receives from the rich men she accompanies to dinner each evening, Tiffany’s features surprisingly little actual eating. Instead we often see Holly drinking: at the bar when she sends her Doc away from New York; for breakfast when champagne is opened to the celebrate Paul’s story being published; and most significantly, at the cocktail party she throws to gather an assortment of potential suitors. It is at this party where we first get a sense of how Holly’s operates; her plan to find a rich husband is revealed as she dismisses the handsome Brazilian, Jose da Silva Pereira, who she does not realise is well-connected and wealthy, to entertain the boring but rich — she thinks — Rusty Trawler. The cocktail party illustrates how Holly uses food and drink as the means to her end of social climbing. This system of priorities is a world apart from the mindset she used to have — Lula Mae recognised food and drink as vital to her survival, and spent her day-to-day seeking out and stealing food to feed herself and her younger brother. These hearty and wholesome foods that Lula Mae once sought out contrast with the lighter, more exotic provisions that Holly now prefers. Returning to the only time we actually see Holly eating, her breakfast at Tiffany’s, her choice of the light, flakey pastry and coffee highlight this contrast. Both have little nutritious value compared to the staples of “milk and turkey eggs” that she used to steal. The former is also much less likely to satisfy her appetite than the latter. An inference about the change in Holly’s ideas about the importance of the preparation of food serves to further highlight the transformation. The stolen eggs could not have been eaten raw and so the assumption is that Lula Mae must have been able to cook to provide for herself and her brother. Holly however, elects for foods that have been prepared for her, the Danish is taken out of a paper bag and the coffee, which she could have easily made by her own hand at home, is instead purchased and drunk from a disposable paper cup. The only other scene in the movie that centres around a meal reinforces both of these changes by featuring a botched attempt at preparing a dainty and fanciful meal — Holly burns the “chicken and saffron rice served with chocolate sauce” that she is cooking. The story of girl with simple, rural roots, aspiring to a grander lifestyle and doing whatever it takes to get there is not particularly unique, it is for example, the main theme of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, first published in 1856. Many parallels can be drawn between Flaubert’s Emma and Capote’s Holly, they both enjoy surrounding themselves with the wealthy — the previously examined Cocktail Party for Holly and the banquet thrown by Marquis d’Andervilliers in Emma’s case — for example, and take lovers who have no intention of marrying them and leave them via letter just before a planned elopement — as Jose does to Holly and Rodolphe does to Emma. Furthermore, like Holly, Madame Bovary’s aspirations are reflected in her choices of food: she similarly prefers for dainty and exotic edibles and often opts for drink rather than food, in fact, the scene where Emma seductively drinks curaçao, “with the tip of her tongue passing between her small teeth she licked drop by drop the bottom of her glass” is reminiscent of Holly using a cocktail party to seduce Rusty. What separates Holly Golightly, however, from Madame Bovary and others of her archetype is that Holly really believes that she has become the person she aspires to be. “Is she or isn’t she a phony?” poses O.J. Berman, the Hollywood agent that “discovered” Holly and helped along her transformation by “smoothing out that hillbilly accent,” before immediately continuing with, “So, you don’t, huh? Well, you’re wrong. She is. Uh, on the other hand, you’re right, because she’s a real phony. You know why? Because she honestly believes all this phony junk that she believes in.” The idea that Holly attempts to live the life the fanciful character she has constructed for herself would live explains her choice to eat the most important meal of the day dressed to the nines and alone, with only jewels behind glass to keep her company, while the rest of New York is still asleep.

The Breakfast Club Defined by Their Lunches by Christian Villacres The Breakfast Club (1985) relays the story of five high school students from vastly different social groups who spend an entire Saturday together in detention. At the beginning of the film, they are all tasked with writing a reflective essay on who they think they are. Based on every impression made by the students, it would seem as if they all fit perfectly into their respective archetypes. These assumed stereotypes are precisely what Mr. Vernon, the teacher watching over them, expects to find in their written responses, however as the film progresses it become more evident that they are all far more than their conventional image would suggest. The students consider these cliché representations of themselves as their true identities for the majority of the film, and it takes until the conclusion of the film for them to realize their true essence. John Hughes, the director of the film, excellently executes the inexplicit assignment of each student to their respective stereotype through each student’s subtle (and not so subtle) behaviors. While it may not seem exceedingly significant in the larger scope of the film, the lunch scene perfectly exemplifies this inexplicit assignment of archetypes to each character. The kinds of foods we choose to eat speak volumes about our character, and in the case of this film, each student’s meal places a spotlight on the character traits Hughes wishes to emphasize. As aforementioned, the meal each student packs for lunch draws attention to the deep-seated image assigned to them by society. For example, Andrew, the established ‘jock’ of the group, packs a copious amount of nutritious food, which is befitting of an elite athlete. This grand feast, which consists of several sandwiches, multiple pieces of fruit, and an entire family-size bag of chips, suggests that Andrew’s father places great importance on his nutrition. Claire, the ‘princess’, packs sushi, an exotic food that the other students do not seem to even recognize, accompanied by an intricate, wooden serving plate. This meal choice would suggest that Claire’s family is very financially comfortable and that she is well provided for. Brian, the ‘brains’, brings a lunch obviously prepared by his mother and one that even he describes as being “completely standard”. The nature of his packed lunch would suggest that he comes from a household where he is constantly being loved and supported. Allison, the ‘basket-case’, packs a strange lunch that she obviously prepared herself. The meal consists of a sandwich made of sugar, white bread, and cereal. This poor excuse for a meal would suggest that Allison was probably never taught how to eat well and is likely ignored at home. Finally, and possibly most poignant of all, would be the meal Bender, the ‘criminal’, packs, which is actually nothing at all. This lack of food goes hand in hand with the stories of abuse he recounts to the other students and the lack of care he receives from his parents. This scene is short, but meaningful, and is made more intense by the hectic filming style employed by the cinematographer. The Breakfast Club makes great use of its cinematography to highlight the gradual establishment of power the students build over their own identities. The camera angles used during several scenes are definitely intentional and stress the relationship between the characters within each shot. For instance, during the library scene, when the students are being assigned their essays, the camera is filming at a downward angle from the perspective of Mr. Vernon. This camera angle stresses the superiority of Mr. Vernon as their disciplinarian. Later in the film when the five students are seated on the floor conversing, as seen in the still shot placed above, the camera angle is more or less at the same level as all of the children. This eye-level camera angle underlines the students’ realization that regardless of their differing social standings, they are all essentially equal. The final scene of the movie sees Bender pump his fist triumphantly with the camera angle looking up at him. This choice in camera angle signifies the students’ triumph over their stereotypes. In addition to the cinematography of the film, non-diegetic sound in the form of music also accentuates the thematic content intended by Hughes. The prominently featured song by Simple Minds, “Don’t You Forget About Me”, alludes to a conversation between the students on school life outside of detention. The question is first posed by Brian, who wonders whether or not the friendships formed that day would persist outside of detention. The other students initially respond that they could not possibly remain friends because of the outside pressure from their established social groups. This concern is cast aside by the conclusion of the film, however, as it is clear that the students have all successfully broken free from their labels. First exhibited by their choice in packed lunches, the five students all seem so different that they may as well be from different planets. These superficial differences quickly melt away, however, as their labels are cast aside and their true personalities are revealed. Over the course of the film, the students collectively discover that they all go through similar problems as adolescents. This group mentality is aptly summarized by the following David Bowie quote featured before the commencement of the film: “…and these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware of what they’re going through”. Work Cited Tanen, N., & Hughes, J. (Producers), & Hughes, J. (Director). (1985). The Breakfast Club [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Studio

It's Not Just About Food by Alexander Thornburg A Bug’s Life, a children’s movie centered around an ant colony striving to provide food to the grasshopper overlord’s they’re beholden to, might immediately appear to be completely about food. The central conflict of the film has to do with food. An established ecosystem that demands the ants pick food for half of their harvest season simply to offer to the grasshoppers, led by Hopper, and the second-half of their harvest they get to pick food for themselves. When Flik, a revolutionary misfit ant, accidentally destroys their offering, the grasshoppers demand them to reproduce it, forcing them into racing against time in order to provide the grasshoppers with enough food to satiate them while attempting to simultaneously harvest the necessary amount for their own survival. While it may seem that the film’s central contention has to do with the availability of food and the natural cycle of life, the cyclical wheels that drive Hopper appear to be about much more than simple food. “It’s not about food, it’s about keeping those ants in line.” In a speech delivered by Hopper in the second half of the movie, it’s revealed that not only do the grasshoppers have more than enough food to satiate themselves and live extravagantly, but that Hopper's real intention in taking food from the ants lies in his desire for power. Hopper manipulates food into a facade for maintaining control over the ants, and it becomes very clear that the film posits those who have food against those who do not. The relationship between host and guest becomes desecrated through the film, with the guest coercing the host into subservience through fear rather than allowing them to provide out of goodwill. Through Hopper’s perversion of the cycle of food, it is only through a return to that cycle that the ants are capable of overcoming his influence. Flik, in a daring final attempt to defy Hopper, tricks him into becoming food for a bird which echoes an earlier statement in the movie made by Molt, one of the grasshoppers and the brother of Hopper: “...and the birds eat the grasshoppers…” Only through utilizing the proper food cycle are the ants able to return to a more natural order of things. The cycle of food seems to be prevalent throughout the entire film, especially apparent as Flik goes to the city. The process of food passing through hands is obvious, but another underlying relationship seems to be that of the emptied food-cartons into the purposes of the bugs. The buildings of the city, as pictured above, as well as the carriage for the circus, all are crafted out of empty food cartons. While food is consumed by humans, the waste becomes utilized by the bugs which establishes a new system of food that is centered instead on waste. This is particularly salient for the film itself as the ant’s offering to the grasshoppers appears to be equivalent to waste for them as they do not even need it. The film explores not only the cyclical nature of food, but also how food can be manipulated in order to perpetuate power. A Bug's Life. Dir. John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. Pixar Animation Studios, 1998.

Food, Art, and Love by Tori Placentra In the 2015 film Burnt lighting, color, and cuts are used to elevate cooking to an unparalleled art. The film opens with Adam shucking his last of one million oysters, his penance for the mistakes of the past. When his self-imposed punishment is over, he flies to London, surprising many old friends and cleverly persuading them to financially back him and his new restaurant. Adam finds inspiration all around him. He walks through food markets where myriad cuisines are being prepared, he inquires as to the oils used for cooking, the spices from all the cooks, tasting everything. The viewer can almost smell all the aromas that must be floating around the street market. Adam is also able to pinpoint in what order the ingredients for a dish were prepare and how long it sat before being served – his gustatory and culinary skills are remarkable. In the kitchen however, Adam is harsh and often screams and throws dishes. The behavior distances him from his staff, which is depicted in the film through the looks of fear on the staff’s face and also the actual distance between the characters on screen. Adam is separated from his staff by the “pass” on which the food is plated before serving, an additional barrier to the space between them. These barriers within the kitchen make for a more chaotic environment in which the food is prepared and clearly presents a problem for obtaining the third Michelin star. Throughout the film, Adam develops a relationship with a very talented young cook named Helene. Helene teaches Adam about the importance of closeness and communication while he helps her refine her skills as a chef. As their relationship develops, the on-screen barriers slowly start to come down. This is shown in Figure 1, where Adam and Helene stand quite close to one another and he asks her advice on a new sauce he has prepared. This struggle between professionalism and personal relationships is represented in the ideas about food in the film as well. The natural purpose of food is for people to eat when they are hungry (the relationship side of things), but Adam says he wants to make food that “makes people stop eating.” It would make people stop eating because it’s so decadent, surprising, rich they would have to stop and take it in, put their forks down and just experience (the art and professionalism side). However, these two are not as inherently different as they may seem. This is what the film shows. Adam learns to incorporate both. In one of the final scenes, after the Michelin raters come to the restaurant, Adam exchanges a look with his good friend Tony. The viewer does not know whether or not this look means the third star was obtained, but there is a sense that it does not really matter because in the very next scene, Adam is sitting down with his staff for a family meal before the dinner service begins, a marked difference from his harsh, aloof nature at the beginning. The film means to show that you can have both the art and the prestige, and love. Works Cited Burnt. Dir. John Wells. Prod. Stacey Sher, Erwin Stoff, and John Wells. Perf. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. The Weinstein Company. 2015.

Sexuality in a Simple Peach by Junessa Sladen-Dew From the opening scene surrounding the debate of the word “apricot” it becomes clear that food, specifically fruit, is integral to the film. The new American love story, Call Me By Your Name (2017) by Luca Guadagnino, highlights the hidden sexuality and passion in a gay romance between Elio and Oliver through the lens of fruit. Set in an enchanted paradise deemed as “Somewhere in Northern Italy,” the deliberate mysteriousness creates a romanticism that underlies the entire film. Beautiful scene after beautiful scene, usually positioned in a bright green garden, a secluded lake, or a picturesque orchard, portrays the intense summer love through the simple innocence of summer and fresh fruit. In the striking film, peaches take on a deeper significance, creating a doorway for both men to share their secret passion and embody their overwhelming, uncontrolled emotions. Food has become fetishized and in modern society through contemporary interpretation peaches are symbols of freshness, softness, femininity and sensuality. They embody sensuality and metaphorically represent mortality. The sweet, almost sickly smell of ripening fruit represents the fleeting enjoyment of life’s pleasures. Call Me By Your Name highlights this analogy through what is arguably the most controversial film scene concerning sexuality in 2018. This film embarks on a journey to uncover the importance of the peach including intellectual conversations on the history of the fruit, devouring peaches straight from nature, drinking the juice of peaches while having panning shots of it dripping down their bodies and ending in a scene of erotic passion where a peach is first used as a tool of sexual fantasy and then later eaten. The peach is not only a symbol of hidden sensuality between Elio and Oliver however, but also a symbol of familial love in the meals taken with Elio’s family Although the peach embodies the sexual energy between the men and is both figuratively and literally used as a tool to express their intense emotions, it also shows the internal conflict of Elio between his sexuality and societal opinion. Through using peaches, a simple fruit, as a metaphorical portal between his hidden life and his family life, the complexities of non-heteronormative sexuality become expressed. By using the peach which is seen as part of the daily lives of the family as well as used as tool for erotic passion, we see how love can take many forms. In Figure 1, we see Elio and the visiting grad student, Oliver, sitting across from Elio’s parents with a huge spread of food, including peach juice and peach slices. Although both sides of the table are in completely different worlds and sitting at the table as very different people in society, the same food ties them together and symbolizes the complexities of love and the romantic and familial relationships that exist from that love. The cinematography that captures gentle lights, wide shots, blurred lines and tranquility once again drive home the point that this film isn’t meant to become a dramatic, heartbreaking film but simply a depiction of the complexities of young love in a changing world. Works Cited Call Me by Your Name. Directed by Luca Guadagnino. 2017. Sony Pictures Classic

Food and the Con by Idhant Khosla The movie that I chose to analyze was "Catch Me If You Can." This film is based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. which follows Frank’s journey as one of the most successful con artists, and his pursuit by the relentless FBI agent, Carl Hanratty. While the central plot does not revolve around food, food is used as a symbolic and thematic instrument. Food in the movie is used to convey an illusion of wealth. His cons often involve Frank creating an image of money sophistication, and his extravagant dining experiences significantly contribute to this facade. Food becomes a tool to signal prosperity. Another role of food in this file is how food is used to highlight the emotional connection between Frank and his father. In one scene, Frank Jr. takes his dad to a restaurant and orders him an extravagant lobster dish, a symbol of their shared dreams. Food here is a medium for expressing love, aspirations, and the desire for a better life. This scene further also reinforces the point of food being used to symbolize wealth. This restaurant is incredibly nice which is contrasting to Frank’s upbringing and his dads norms. For example, his dad is confused why one of his forks is cold, when Frank informs him it is a salad fork (something only seen at expensive restaurants). Food and drink also function as a representation of Frank's youth and inexperience. During his initial flight while posing as a pilot in training, his peculiar request for, "Milk, please," from a flight attendant highlights his youth. This unusual beverage choice becomes a subtle yet effective way to emphasize Frank's relative inexperience in the world he is navigating. In "Catch Me If You Can," food while not the central focus of the story, serves as a significant and purposeful element, enriching the audience's understanding of the characters and their actions. Catch Me If You Can. Dir. Steven Speilberg, Dreamwork Pictures, 2002.

The Impact of Individual Food Histories on People’s Lives by Christian Ortiz The 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, based on Roald Dahl’s beloved tale, tells the story of a young boy named Charlie Bucket who grew up in an impoverished family. Despite this, Charlie is determined to find a golden ticket in a candy bar from Willy Wonka, a famous chocolatier and candy inventor, which earns him a trip to Wonka’s amazing candy factory. As we all know, Charlie stumbles across some money in the street and is able to afford a candy bar where he finds the last of the five golden tickets. He chooses to take his Grandpa Joe, who used to work in the factory, with him on his day trip to tour the amazing facility. The significance of candy is apparent as the film highlights how it has impacted each of characters differently and why it is important to each of them. The Bucket family lives in a small, beat-up house with their entire extended family. Mr. Bucket hardly makes enough money at the toothpaste factory to put a meal on the table for the family. Each day, they have cabbage and potatoes for lunch and cabbage soup for dinner. Mr. Bucket even jokes to water down the soup more when they are on a tight budget. Despite their unfortunate circumstances, food unites the family. They sit down and eat each meal together, and enjoy the occasional Wonka chocolate bar together – a treat when they can afford it. Further, the Bucket family is brought together by Mr. Wonka’s golden ticket competition, pooling their money together for Charlie to purchase more chocolate bars in hopes Charlie could fulfill his dream. During Mr. Wonka’s competition, the film follows each of the five children who win the golden tickets, and we discover what candy means to each of them and their families. Veruca Salt, for example, has her father open a warehouse and hire hundreds of employees to unwrap candy bars. Another boy, Augustus Gloop, simply eats so much candy that he eventually happens upon a golden ticket. Lastly, Mike Teavee somehow solves a formula to discover a golden ticket, but he has little interest in the candy and even the fact that he won. The film compares and contrasts how candy plays a role in each of the children’s lives – from insane search parties to complete indifference. Some people are extremely motivated by their love or nostalgia associated with certain foods, like Veruca, while others do not have the same connection with it, like Mike Teavee. This difference in how people treat food is derived from a variety of tastes and preferences as well as wealth – similar to how many people treat food today. Wealthy people are more willing and able to spend money to explore unique food and try nice restaurants. However, even if poorer people may like certain foods or want to go a specific restaurant, they may not be able to afford it. Veruca Salt had the means to search thousands of candy bars for a golden ticket, but Charlie’s family could hardly afford to purchase one candy bar. When Mr. Wonka brings the guests in to his factory, a series of flashbacks reveals Mr. Wonka’s candy history. His father was the most well-known dentist in his home town, and for that reason, would not allow him to eat candy at all. On Halloween, his father let him go and collect candy, but dumped it all in the fire when he returned home. Depicted in the photo, young Charlie went back to the fire and found a piece in the ashes that was not completely burnt and ate his first piece of chocolate. He absolutely loved it. Because of his family and how they treated candy, Mr. Wonka was motivated to open his brilliant factory. This emphasizes how family traditions and regulations regarding food, or candy in this case, can affect each person for their whole life. His father’s opinion of candy motivates his whole career. Mr. Wonka has these extremely nostalgic candy moments while giving the tour of his factory, showing how even the lack of a specific food can create nostalgic and memorable moments. Further, the cinematography reinforced Mr. Wonka’s passion for candy through the color. In his factory, especially in the room with chocolate waterfall, all the colors are extremely bright. All of the candy looks extremely appetizing and colorful, and this theme is consistent throughout his factory. However, in contrast, during Mr. Wonka’s flashbacks, the colors are extremely dark and neutral. The image above depicts how they used a low-key effect to emphasize a tougher, darker part of his life versus the happier mood the colors infer when he is in his beloved factory. Mr. Wonka explains that he began having these nostalgic moments more and more often, and one day, when he was getting his haircut, he realized he was getting old when he discovered a grey hair. Because of this, he released the golden tickets to find someone to hand down his factory to, and he chose Charlie. Mr. Wonka has a true passion for candy and sharing it with people, and he wants to hand down the tradition to a younger generation, just like many people do with cooking. After observing how each child views candy, Mr. Wonka realized that he most closely identified with Charlie’s story. Much like Mr. Wonka’s flashbacks, Charlie’s life is depicted with dark colors and an overall melancholy tone. Understanding that they have similar candy histories and a mutual passion for candy, he decided that he was best fit for the position. When watching the film critically, it is evident that Tim Burton intentionally told the candy history or background for each character to help build to the conclusion of the film where Mr. Wonka decides who is bet fit to adopt his brilliant factory.

Some Terrific, Radiant and Pseudo-Pet Pig by Georgia Jeffrey Charlotte’s Web (2006) is the story of Wilbur, the runt spring pig, and his quest to see the first snow fall of winter. After making an unlikely friend in Charlotte, the resident barn spider, the farm animals band together to save Wilbur from the slaughterhouse. In this film adaptation, the writers challenge the social constructions of farm animals by making them more visible and personified. Non-human animals are defined based on their relation to humans and their utilization (Stewart and Cole, 2009). Their categorisation is both contingent and socially constructed. According to Stewart and Cole (2009), farm animals are frequently considered objective and invisible. Charlotte weaves webs of intricate and carefully selected words above Wilbur’s barn door to make him more visible to the humans in control of his fate. Children often empathize more with animals and are temporarily disgusted when they find out the origin of meat. Literary and film tend to help children learn to “conceptually distance the animals they eat from those whom they have an emotional bond” (ibid.:458). The portrayal of nonhuman animal characters with what we assume to be uniquely human qualities is commonplace in children’s fiction. Quite often there is an emphasis placed on domestic animals and pets. This communicated the idea that ‘pet-keeping’ is the only emotionally important relationship a person should have with other animals. Chickens, sheep, cows and pigs “are treated as replaceable commodities, which remain invisible in the stories”(ibid.:463). Wilbur quickly becomes a “pseudo pet” at the beginning of the film. At 0:02:30, the audience is introduced to a litter of newborn piglets. Fern, the farmer’s young daughter, runs through a thunderstorm from the main house to see them. The music is light and whimsical, reflective of Fern’s excitement and wonder as she first lays eyes on them. The music comes to a halt and claps of thunder dominate the soundscape as her father picks up an axe and the smallest piglet. As he turns around and notices his daughter is watching, a flash of lightening lights up the left side of his face. In that moment, Fern considers him the evil bad guy and the pathetic fallacy reflects this. Her father says the piglet needs to be killed because he is too small. Fern replies “it can’t help being small, if I’d been born small would you have killed me?” The answer is “of course not” (0:03:45). Here, the adult is drawing lines in the value of life when Fern does not believe there is a difference. Fern’s love and nurturing of Wilbur, after her father agrees to letting her rear him, is critically set against the father’s profession as a meat farmer. For the audience watching, there is an association between the loss of sympathy or empathy for animals and growing up (Stewart and Cole, 2009). For Wilbur, he is transformed from a working animal into a pet as a result of his treatment by the human benefactor. He becomes a hybrid of two categories: food and companion. Throughout the film, Wilbur is constantly threatened by his primary identity as food. His status as pet is unstable. Stewart and Cole (2009) argue that “animal typologies are transmitted…through the diversion of polymorphous and non-discriminatory affective forms of relation between children and other animals, into culturally defined routes” (p.478). By challenging these categories through giving a farm animal a voice, the pig is viewed as an autonomous subject, contrary to what children are taught. The “absent referent” is what separated the consumer from the animal and the animal from the product. Whether it is the use of euphemisms such as pork or beef, the “absent referent” keeps something from being viewed as someone (ibid.). Charlotte’s Web has been credited as being responsible for temporary decreased pork consumption among children as it tried to break this down (Stewart and Cole, 2009). However, in the end, a gimmick saved the animal, not its animalness. Works Cited Charlotte’s Web. (2006). [DVD] Directed by G. Winick. Harper & Brothers. Stewart, K. and Cole, M. (2009). "The Conceptual Separation of Food and Animals in Childhood". Food, Culture & Society, 12(4), pp.457-476.

The Cuban Shuffle of Carl Casper by Jennifer Lyu In the film, Chef (2014) directed by Jon Favreau, Carl Casper (shown on the right above) plays the lead character that loses his head chef position at Galouise restaurant in California and starts his own food truck business selling traditional Cuban food. The scene above occurs in Miami inside the once dilapidated food truck that becomes refurbished by Carl and his son, Percy (shown in the middle). Carl’s friend Martin (shown on the left) turns down his promotion at the restaurant to work with Carl in the food truck. In this scene Carl and Martin just prepared some traditional Cuban roasted pork as part of the cubano, a traditional Cuban sandwich made also with ham, Swiss cheese, and mustard wedged between two pieces of buttered-down Cuban bread. Ultimately, the shift in food from the delicate American cuisines in Galouise to the traditional food truck cubanos that Carl prepares reflects a parallel shift in the values Carl possesses throughout the film. Essentially, the restaurant cuisines portray his deep concern for his self-image and reputation, whereas the cubanos take him back to his roots: he begins to prioritize his life and see the true value of friendship and family. The scene shown above encapsulates excitement and eagerness from the three characters as Carl delicately slices through the cubano pork. All eyes are fixated to ensure that the perfect size is extracted to quench their taste buds. The anticipation builds, and when the meat finally reaches their mouths, their eyes close and there is a collective longing for more. The deliciousness of the pork begins to run through all three of their veins and ultimately creates not only a connection between the pork and the individual, but also a communal link between the three characters that unites their friendship. In contrast, this sense of stirring excitement and anticipation is absent during Carl’s time in the restaurant. At Galouise, Carl prepares the same dishes routinely and there is no room for self-expression or deviation from the original menu that Riva, Carl’s boss, enforces. As a result, when the ordinary food is presented in front of the food critic, Ramsey, there is no look of enthusiasm or fervor on his face like that of Carl, Percy, and Martin’s in the scene depicted above. Thus, the lack of spontaneity and zeal in Carl’s cooking at the restaurant reflects a limitation for Carl to express himself and instead illustrates a subordinate side of him that obeys every task he is instructed to do in order to maintain his reputation as head chef and keep the business going. Consequently, as Carl continues to devote a majority of his time and efforts into his work, he expresses minimal care and affection towards his son. His disregard towards his son is shown through his perfunctory conversations with Percy and his constant tardiness when picking Percy up from school. Essentially, Carl’s superficial relationship with his son reflects a similar superficiality that Carl possesses with his restaurant cuisines. The restaurant food fails to bring about a sense of intrinsic gratification and pleasure within Carl and instead the food becomes the product of his obligation to serve his boss and the business. Similarly, through Carl’s eyes, the time he spends with Percy is seen more as an obligation of his fatherhood than an act of authenticity. Carl’s relationship with his son improves as Carl begins to cook his traditional Cuban food with Percy alongside him. Carl teaches Percy how to make the cubanos and through his teachings, Carl is not only getting back in touch with his own roots and culture, but he is also passing down Cuban traditions to his son. Additionally, the unrepressed atmosphere of the food truck permits Carl to cook the cubanos by any method he desires, creating room for self-expression and creativity. Cooking is no longer an obligation, but an enjoyment. Furthermore, the cubanos themselves represent simplicity and nourishment. The simple ingredients of the cubanos are ultimately part of this simple lifestyle of living day to day in the food truck and the happiness that is ignited through this simplicity. On the other hand, the cubanos also reflect the nourishment and mutual sustenance of Carl and Percy’s relationship. The food truck journey from New Orleans to Austin, Texas provides Carl the opportunity to develop a deeper and more meaningful relationship with his son through extended conversations and attentive listening to his son’s thoughts and ideas. Through these experiences, Carl soon learns to prioritize and value the simpler aspects of his life, such as his family and friends, as well as appreciate the Cuban culture and traditions that make up his own identity. Work Cited Chef. Dir. Jon Favreau. Perf. Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Sofia Vergara. Open Road Films, 2014. DVD.

Delicious Deceit: Temptation in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Savanna Mathis Andrew Adamson’s fantasy and adventure film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), based on the novel by C. S. Lewis, follows four siblings who are sent to a safe home in London amidst the bombings of World War II. Upon their arrival, they discover a wardrobe that transports them to a magical land by the name of Narnia. The siblings soon learn that they are destined to save Narnia from the evil of the White Witch (Tilda Swinton). While they receive guidance from their lion companion Aslan (Liam Neeson), the White Witch has her own tricks up her sleeve, utilizing food to tempt the siblings to turn on one another. One of the most entrancing scenes involving food occurs when Edmund (Skandar Keynes) meets the White Witch in the snowy woods of Narnia. The White Witch becomes irritated immediately, questioning Edmund’s identity and how he has found her land. Upon learning there are multiple siblings, she turns affectionate and offers Edmund anything he would like to eat or drink. As Edmund sips from a chalice of hot cocoa and devours a tin of “Turkish Delights” (gummy candies made from starch and sugar that come in a variety of flavors), the White Witch plants ideas in his head about his potential rule of Narnia and tricks him into agreeing to bring his siblings to her. This manipulation of food with the Turkish Delights emphasizes the strong desires for specific foods that could tempt anyone to do things both good and bad, but this portrayal of food also demonstrates how it can be weaponized. The White Which takes advantage of Edmund’s naivety and desire for Turkish Delights to get him to not only put his family in danger, but to also put all of Narnia at risk. Throughout the film, she continues to tempt Edmund with Turkish Delights to keep him on her side until he sees her true colors and is freed by Aslan. This film and its relationship to food produce many lessons about just how prominent and powerful food is in human functioning. Food is typically viewed in a positive lens as nourishing and eliciting happiness from those who consume it, but the food in this film is portrayed negatively with emphasis on greed, temptation, betrayal, and more. Food sets our desires into motion and the foods that are dangerous and forbidden initiate our biblical nature of temptation. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Dir. Andrew Adamson. Walt Disney Pictures. 2005.

Each Day a Pineapple Tin by John Ligtenberg Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film Chungking Express entwines two love stories with a Midnight Express food stall in Hong Kong. In the film, each character’s love is represented by the food he or she eats. The use of food as a metaphor for love in Chungking Express highlights the melancholic aspects of love: generic flavors that never get any sweeter, sustenance rather than pleasurable flavor, and strictly enforced expiration dates. When the film begins, the first protagonist, He Qiwu, has been left by his girlfriend, May, and he has decided to wait thirty days before moving on, each day eating a tin of pineapple that will expire on the thirtieth day, May 1. Tins of pineapple were May’s favorite food, and thus Qiwu spends that month figuratively consuming his love for her. These tins are an odd metaphor for love, since they are mass produced items with no real aesthetic value, nor uniqueness at all aside from the expiration date printed on them. Since each tin is identical, food, and, by extension, love, is a reduced to an ordinary commodity that can be found at any convenience store, lasts a certain amount of time, and has no purpose other than pure sustenance. As the expiration date approaches, the pineapple tins are steadily going bad, until on April 30, Qiwu cannot find a tin of pineapple expiring on May 1, because the shop has cleared all the old food away. Seeing the waste, Qiwu complains to the owner about how much effort goes into making tins of pineapple, which draws attention to how food goes to waste in the modern world of mass production and expiration dates. Similarly, love doesn’t last forever, and it is an ongoing job to keep creating new instances of it, only to expire in their due time. In exasperation, the shop owner gives Qiwu every expired pineapple tin from the trash, and so, on May 1, Qiwu binge eats every single expired pineapple tin, which he promptly vomits back out. Thus Qiwu symbolically purges himself of the food and lost love in which he’s been floundering. Vomiting is what happens when the tongue and mouth, the romantic organs of kissing, find food edible, but the stomach—the physical core of the human body—disagrees with, and forcibly expels. In Chungking Express, the symbolism is that after a love has run its scheduled course, the body physically expunges all traces of that love in order to prepare space for the next one. After purging his previous love, Qiwu is ready to begin another. During the thirty days, Qiwu was unable to find a new girlfriend, despite constantly calling old acquaintances from the public phone at the Midnight Express food stall. After purging himself of his previous love, however, he makes up his mind to fall in love with the next woman he meets. Since his previous love has “expired” along with the pineapple, Qiwu easily falls in love with a woman in a bar. This relationship does not turn into a passionate or long term affair, since all they do is share a single meal together, and then the woman leaves in the morning. This second relationship shows that one must constantly search for a new love, in the same way that expiration dates force people to eat certain foods at certain times. The passion and romance of love is replaced by a mechanical, scheduled consumption, just like the daily ritual of eating a pineapple tin. In Chungking Express, food, as a metaphor for love, is not flashy or unique, but instead stamped with a date that tells everyone exactly when it will go bad. Consuming the same food past its expiration date will make one sick, which suggests that a melancholy predictability about how people must consume their food, and their love. As a metaphor for love, the presence of food in Chungking Express shows that no romance can last forever. The film raises the question of whether there is a kind of romantic superiority to food made with care, or whether the superficiality is all a ruse to cover the fact that all food is, ultimately, simply sustenance. In the same way, the film leaves it unanswered whether there is ever any permanence or significance to love, or whether it inevitably expires. Work Cited Chungking Express. Dir. Wong Kar-wai. Perf. Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Faye Wong, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Miramax Films, 1994. DVD.

The Greed and Artifice of Hamburgers by Renu Gharpure A major theme throughout Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) is greed and its consequences. The film uses many methods to reveal its message on the dangers of greed, but none are so strong as the portrayal of Mayor Shelbourne and his relationship to the new source of food, pictured here. Mayor Shelbourne is the mayor of Swallow Falls, where this quaint children’s tale takes place. The mayor’s goal as head of the town is to expand, reach out, and make the island-town of Swallow Falls a desired destination for people across the globe. We see his personality emerge as the movie progresses—he continuously talks about expansion and how “bigger is better.” The film provides a visual aid for this concept by showing the mayor physically “expanding,” so to speak. As the story unfolds, the mayor becomes fatter and fatter until he can no longer walk without the help of a mechanical chair. His mindless attempts to attract tourists and increase revenue are represented by the foods that he orders from Flint’s food-making machine. In the still here, the mayor gorges himself on three hamburgers—the first food to rain down from the FLDSMDFR (Flint Lockwood’s Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator). A lot can be said about the choice of making hamburgers the first food to fall from the sky. The hamburger is an American staple; it stands as representative of all American foods, the taste that Americans crave most. In this way, it represents the American dream as well, which is mostly defined as “making it big,” whether politically, socially, or financially. This is similar to the way the mayor is waiting for Swallow Falls to “make it big” internationally. When the mayor realizes what Flint has invented and the magnitude of the invention, he realizes that here lies the key to the rebirth of the town. Indeed, as the town builds its air time on the world’s news, the name “Swallow Falls” is changed to Chew and Swallow Falls, which implies that now this town should not just be overlooked, or simply “swallowed,” but it must be mulled over, thought about—“chewed on,” so to speak, as people use the expression today. The hamburgers raining down symbolize the mayor’s American dream beginning to come true—the key to his success literally falls from the sky and he literally eats it up. The backdrop against the hamburgers in this still reflects ideas that are represented by the artificial food. The bright, colorful lights might suggest a sort of celestial light shining down from the sky along with the food—this false food made by the FLDSMDFR is saving Swallow Falls from their gray, “flavorless” days of eating only sardines (being a nearly-forgotten island has led the town to having only one source of food: sardines). The hamburgers provide a nice contrast to this very unappetizing fish. Burgers are savory and meaty at their best, and this lighting emphasizes the savior-like qualities of the food—however, there is something unnatural and unearthly about the light. True goodness and divinity would more commonly be associated with clear, cloudless skies and sunlight—or else light that shines through the clouds, as though breaking apart the dark cloud masses. This light, however, does neither of those things. It is coming from the cloud itself, which means there is nothing breaking up the overcast skies. This offers a sense of foreboding or foreshadowing brought alongside the hamburgers. Setting the hamburgers up against this artificial backdrop of colors and light increases the falsity of the food. Artifice is used throughout the film whenever any of the FLDSMDFR food makes an appearance. The mayor is also the character most associated with the artificial food because he is never seen without a massive stack of food—later in the movie he actually eats a giant human-sized hotdog topped with several giant scoops of ice cream all in one bite. As the mayor pushes Flint to produce more fake food so he can further expand the town’s popularity, he, too, physically increases in size and the lights and colors become harsher and darker until, at the climax of the film, the sky is fiery orange and blood red with a spiraling spaghetti twister wreaking havoc through the town. Introducing all of these themes with hamburgers—an American staple representing the mayor’s emerging American dream—strengthens the film’s message on the dangers of greediness and artificiality.

Consumerism at the Cost of the Environment by Jack Wang A major theme of the first movie, greed, is continued in the second installment of the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2013). In this second film, the theme is expressed through the main antagonist Chester, innovator and owner of LiveCorp. He plots to steal Flint’s Flint Lockwood’s Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR) and make better tasting Foodbar out of foodimals, animals made out of food. Chester’s willingness to sacrifice the foodimals for higher Foodbar sells is a poignant critique of real life situations where the environment has been compromised by material greed. Although a heavy subject, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 chose to discuss it in a light-hearted manner. In short, the film is fun. Instead of having real animals, cute and puny food substitutes are used. The big screen is saturated with vibrant creatures like shrimpanzees, cantelopes, and tacodile; it is impossible not get caught up trying to guessing the name of the next creature to pop up on screen. Within this happy food paradise, strong overtones of consumerism is found aplenty. Chester is first introduced to the audience through a commercial Flint sees on TV, selling his iconic Foodbar. Chester’s LiveCorp lightbulb logo is ubiquitous, found on helicopters, his clothing, and even in the shape of the headquarter building itself. The branding goes as far as to include his own body—Chester rarely appears in the flesh, instead preferring to have holograms, a proud invention of LiveCorp, take his place. Chester and LiveCorp are modeled after modern tech giants. Decked out in a trendy orange vest and sleek green glasses, the tall, thin man antagonist is a chiseled statue of the late Steve Jobs. LiveCorp headquarter, on the other hand, more resembles Google. A 21st century work paradise for young twenty somethings: the place offers unlimited coffee, space tubes for transportation, and no objectives other than to “innovate”. Chester and LiveCorp’s entire purpose is to create new, must-have consumer goods. In order to fulfill its purpose, LiveCorp have to use unethical methods. Chester falsely informs Flint of the dangerous nature of foodimals. He shows Flint a misleading video of a cheespider attack. Through the shaky camera and spotty tape, it really did seem like a violent threat. However, we later learn that cheespiders are actually dog-like cheeseburgers who like belly rubs. In another instance, a tacodile protecting its young is mislabeled as being naturally aggressive. These scenes illustrate our common misconceptions of wild animals. Rather than trying to understand lion attacks on humans as a sign of habitat encroachment, we tend to chalk it up to lions having man-eating tendencies. In our greed for exotic things like pelts and ivory, many majestic animals are no more. Chester’s actions are not too different from advertisement schemes by big corporations. By incorporating food into all of the lifeforms, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 offers a level of separation from real life. On the surface, it remains a kid-friendly film about a team of friends fighting bad guys in an exciting environment of favorite foods come-to-life. To the more mature audience, one can still certainly enjoy the movie without feeling any guilt. Dig just a little deeper; however, the world of flamangos and LiveCorp suddenly feels a little more real. The foodimals offer a very digestible commentary, raising awareness on the modern crisis of habitat destruction and overconsumption happening all around us.

Is Coffee a Social Lubricant? by Christian Ortiz Released in 2003, Coffee and Cigarettes is a series of 11 vignettes that follow conversations between two or three people. Each conversation is in a restaurant where the characters, over cigarettes or tea and coffee, argue or discuss various obscure topics. However, there are themes that connect each vignette, including conversation about why cigarettes and coffee are bad for you and how you should drink more than coffee for lunch, celebrity worship, and Nikola Tesla’s belief that Earth is a conductor of acoustical resonance. Jim Jarmusch uses coffee or tea and cigarettes to depict how, even though they are a social lubricant, the two only help facilitate surface level conversation, many times creating awkwardness due to the lack of common ground. A film that simply follows people’s everyday conversations over coffee and cigarettes seems quite boring, however there are fascinating themes, bizarre and funny conversations, and interesting commentary on food in a social setting. Because there are so many vignettes, I am going to analyze two and explain how they connect to the film as a whole. The first vignette is called “Cousins?,” featuring actors Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan. Alfred Molina is already seated at a table, offering Steve Coogan a cup of tea as he sits down. Even from the first scene, there is apparent discomfort between the two as Mr. Molina nervously compliments Mr. Coogan’s jacket. The two then continue conversing about a variety of topics, and even when one slightly disagrees or challenges the other, they retreat to be sure no offense is taken. For example, Mr. Coogan explains why he isn’t very fond of Los Angeles, but after Mr. Molina explains his history with the city, he quiets down. As the conversation progresses, the uncomfortable nature becomes more apparent. Oftentimes, Mr. Molina will compliment Mr. Coogan or ask a question, only to receive a blunt “Yeah” or “Thanks.” Then, the two each take a sip of their tea in silence. Similar conversation continues throughout the vignette, highlighting the surface level conversation. Mr. Coogan, more famous and popular, seems uninterested in the conversation, consistently acting like he is above Mr. Molina. This arrogance continues when Mr. Molina presents his heritage research, explaining how they are actually related. Mr. Coogan seems extremely disinterested, refusing to even give Mr. Molina his home telephone number to contact him later. Then, Mr. Molina receives a phone call with another notable celebrity, and now, Mr. Coogan is suddenly interested in his proposed friendship. This power complex intimidates Mr. Molina, keeping him quiet, and comments on celebrity status during that era. In regards to food, the tea is ordered before Mr. Coogan even arrives and have a brief conversation about tea generally, showing how people believe it relieves social awkwardness. However, throughout the rest of the vignette, the two never seem to break the ice, taking sips of their tea when there is prolonged silence. Another scene that I found especially interesting is called “Somewhere in California” with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. The two meet at a diner, and after Tom sits down, Iggy says “I ordered you some coffee.” There is a long moment of silence accompanied by a blank stare from Tom until he says “Yeah, sure, that’s cool.” The silence continues as they each take a sip of their coffee. This first scene, again, shows how, while people can bond over coffee, this still doesn’t break the ice. Jarmusch does a fantastic job of making the viewer feel this discomfort between the two characters. They then begin talking about cigarettes because of the pack sitting on the table. Tom asks Iggy if they are his cigarettes on the table, and Iggy replies that they were just sitting on the table. Then, the two both bond over the fact that they have “quit” when they clearly both still smoke. Tom even says, “Now that I’ve quit, I can have one, ‘cause I’ve quit.” It seems as if the two just talk about whatever is in front of them, tip-toeing around any potential conflict or judgement from the other person. Even though they both smoke, they immediately claim they have both quit, and they both end up lighting a cigarette together, pictured above. They go on to talk about how they are the “coffee and cigarettes generation” and continue similar conversations for the remainder of the vignette. Even though they have coffee and cigarettes, there is still an apparent discomfort between the two, and they never seem to have a genuine conversation. There are long silences accompanied by drags on their cigarettes or sips of their coffee. They avoid any conflict in the conversation, resolving any controversial statements they have made. Similar to the first vignette, they just never seem to move past surface level conversation. In both vignettes I discussed and throughout the film, coffee doesn’t act as a social lubricant as the characters hope, rather it only provides another topic of conversation. As you would expect, the strangers that met for the first time over coffee didn’t really get to know much about each other. When I sit down with someone I have never met before, we don’t usually don’t have deep conversations. Instead, similar to the film, we talk about simple things that seem relevant to the both of us, avoiding any controversial topics.. However, there is a false belief that coffee, and cigarettes during this era, relieve the tension between people when they meet for the first time. However, Jarmusch takes a clear position on this topic, illustrating how coffee is nothing more than a conversation starter and doesn’t relieve the discomfort many people have when they first meet someone.

Parallel Worlds and Coraline's Ideal Meal by Abby Kliensorge Coraline (2009) is the story of a curious young girl who enjoys exploring and who has a tendency to get in trouble. In the film Coraline and her parents move into a new home, where she meets Wyborne, a neighbor. Wyborne eventually gifts her a doll that looks just like her, and this is where the strangeness begins. Her parents, who are seemingly fed up with Coraline’s endless curiosity, set her on the task to explore her new home. In this exploration Coraline finds a door that in the light of day reveals nothing. Yet at night when she awakes and revisits this door, it leads her to an alternate world. In this alternate world she discovers her “other” parents, who have buttons for eyes. The story then follows Coraline’s journey in this alternate world with ideal parents that spoil her with extravagant feasts and all she could wish for, yet, who are not what they seem. Soon enough, the alternate world turns into a nightmare. In Coraline’s reality her parents are noticeably dismissive and dull workaholics. In contrast, within Coraline’s alternate universe her “other” parents are involved, exciting, and cater to many of Coraline’s whims, especially when it comes to Coraline’s ideal meal. The alternate world seems brighter and more colorful in contrast to the dull reality she lives in every day with her real parents. This contrast can be seen when looking at figures one and two. In one of the first scenes in the movie Coraline is having dinner with her real parents and they serve her a sort of stew with vegetables (figure one). Coraline is very upset with this meal and refuses to eat it. Her real parents tell her she must eat the meal and to include her veggies. She expresses disquiet asking why her mom rarely cooks, to which she responds that she cleans rather than cooks. In another scene, while the father is busy, her mother is shown looking into their refrigerator but there’s only a few items available to make a rather inedible meal. This could further show Coraline’s parents too-busy-to-pay-attention mindsets. In the alternate world her “other” mother cooks an extravagant feast just for Coraline (figure two). The feast seems to cater to everything Coraline wants to eat. Coraline asks for a mango smoothie and above the parents a contraption appears to give her exactly what she wished for. Judging by her reaction this could be considered Coraline’s ideal feast. It shows quite a contrast to Coraline’s real parents, who just cook whatever they have available with the time they have to spare as seen in figure one. Food is used in the alternate world as a way to please Coraline and possibly make her even more dissatisfied with her real parents’ inability to give Coraline what she wants in more ways than one. That said, all is not what it seems in this parallel world. When juxtaposed, these two scenes involving food delve deeper into Coraline’s psyche. Coraline could be viewed as a child who feels abandoned by her parents and feels dismissed at every turn by them. Therefore, within her fantasy universe Coraline has ideal parents who don’t dismiss her and give her the attention she needs and craves. In many scenes throughout the film, Coraline keeps visiting the other realm and is constantly greeted with feasts of Coraline’s favorite meals. Although the alternate world provides her with the adventure and attention she wishes for, it also wants to trap her there and turn her into a person with button eyes. The “other” mother uses Coraline’s own psyche against her by providing these extravagant feasts, adventures, and attention to trap her there. The motives for trapping her is to steal Coraline’s soul and use it for the “other” mothers’ own power/gain, essentially killing her. Coraline soon realizes these motives and comes to the realization she wants her real parents, leading to a huge battle against the “other” mother. However, the importance of food within the film is present throughout, as food is used to not only depict much of Coraline’s fantasies and wishes involving her real parents but also used as a manipulation tactic to trick Coraline into staying in the alternate world forever. Coraline. Dir. Henry Selick. Perf. Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Linnell, Robert Bailey Jr. Focus Features, 2009. Streaming.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover: Desire, Transgression, and Cannibalism by Ariana Lutterman Peter Greenaway’s 1989 The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover is a heavily stylized romantic crime drama. By using food to symbolize a love affair, sin and corruption, and poetic justice, Greenaway’s film epitomizes the idea of the feast as an emblem of desire, transgression, and cannibalism. Michael Gambon plays English gangster Albert Spica who owns a lavish French restaurant Le Hollandais where he has ostentatious meals prepared for him, his wife, and his cronies nightly—the daily menus themselves are the transitions between scenes. Georgina, played by Helen Mirren, is well bred and seemingly above the ignorance of her vindictive husband, though this does not save her from his nearly constant beatings and verbal abuse. She begins a secret and highly risky affair with Michael, a customer and bookstore owner, in the bathroom and kitchen of the restaurant, aided by the sympathetic cook and staff. When Spica finally uncovers the affair he kills Michael with vengeful poetic justice, stuffing him with his own books the way he likes his dinner. To retaliate and finally rid herself from her husband, Georgina asks the chef to cook Michael and serve him to Spica at a feast where she forces him to eat part of Michael and then shoots him in the head. From the outset, food is heavily associated with desire and transgression. When Georgina and Michael first make eye contact, Michael eyes her as he eats his food sensually and Spica says in the background “the naughty bits and the dirty bits are so close together that it just goes to show how eating and sex are related.” Food is thus firmly linked to sex, and the affair continues into every hidden space in the restaurant, usually in the store rooms filled with food. When Georgina and Michael have sex for the first time to completion in a room filled with vegetables and breads, the camera cuts repeatedly between images of them and images of the chef chopping and dicing food on the counter. He begins by sharpening his knives as the foreplay ensues and then moves on to the first course—the salad—and continues with peppers and cucumbers, yonic and phallic imagery that parallel the sex progressing. The film uses colour as a powerful tool as well: every costume and set piece in the restaurant is red, the same costumes and set pieces in the bathroom are white, and in the kitchen they are green. The lovers themselves are generally portrayed as naked and in green, suggesting a connection to Adam and Eve. This allusion, with forbidden fruits all around them and a ‘garden’ as their setting, emphasizes the pleasure and more pure nature of the love shared between Georgina and Michael compared to that which she shares with Spica. When Spica discovers the affair and vows to kill them, the lovers are effectively forced from their paradise, this time into a truck of rotten food and meat; food now symbolizes the destruction of their fantasy. When they enter their hide-out, Michael’s bookstore, Georgina’s first comment is “What good are all these books to you? You can’t eat them. How can they make you happy?” Food has become so linked to desire in her mind that she cannot conceive of a world without the gourmand. Book knowledge is heavily associated with the intellect, so it is ironic that Spica, who considers himself superior to Michael dies while eating food, associated with carnal pleasure, he kills Michael with books, a mark of intellect. Cannibalism may be considered the ultimate and absolute disgrace of one’s humanity, a mark of total dehumanization. It is thus utterly humiliating for Spica when Georgina forces him to eat Michael as poetic justice and a fitting end for a husband who has caused her nothing but pain—both physically and emotionally. When he first uncovers their affair, Spica yells “I’ll bloody find them and I’ll bloody kill him! And I’ll bloody eat him! I’ll kill him and I’ll eat him!” Then he does, in fact, murder Michael in a fashion indicative of how he might roast a turkey: “They’re gonna admire the style. ‘He was stuffed. And Albert liked good food.’… ‘He was stuffed with the tools of his trade. He was stuffed with books.’” Spica sees this murder not only as a way of punishing Georgina but as a way to make a statement to society that he will not be challenged. He kills the bookkeeper in a manner that befits both of their chosen trades but ensures that his trade appears worthier. Throughout the film Spica does not hesitate to humiliate and torture anyone—even his customers, regardless of how little they have done to him. It is clear that Georgina has learned something about style in murder from her husband, as the murder that she concocts for him is just as symbolic and humiliating. As she confronts him she orders “You vowed you would kill him, and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him.” At first Spica refuses, believing cannibalism a mark of shame and dehumanization too cruel for her to enforce. But as she points his gun to his head and says “Try the cock, Albert. It’s a delicacy, and you know where it’s been,” a quote encapsulating desire, transgression, and cannibalism together, he acknowledges her sincerity (seen in the image above). Gagging, he eats one bite before she shoots him with a last remark—“Cannibal.” Food has always served as his mark of superiority, but now has become his last shame. Through the various uses of food and the feast in a love affair, a corrupt character, and poetic retribution, Greenaway’s film critiques the entirety of society. Spica serves as an archetype of a dictator whose transgression must ultimately be punished, Georgina symbolizes both the pure and sinful sides of desire, and cannibalism is ultimately a tool that depicts the inevitable fall that will result from a life of superficiality. In its stylized version of society, the film critiques desire, transgression, and cannibalism not only as they are applied to these specific characters but as they apply to human nature as a whole. Food may be a universal commodity, but the infinite variations of it by class, appetite, and culture make it an item that can reveal nuances in any character. Moreover, food is inextricably linked in many minds with the intellect—the pleasure of the gourmand and connoisseur, the heart—the feelings of superiority and splendor gained from eating what is considered ‘high-class’ food, and the carnal pleasures—gluttony and sin. Thus, food is truly a vehicle not only for characterization, but for vice of all kinds, and a way to reveal weaknesses and follies of all kinds. Works Cited The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. Dir. Peter Greenaway. By Peter Greenaway. Perf. Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. Miramax, 1990. Tobias, Scott. “The New Cult Canon The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover.” AV Club Live. A.V. Club, 5 Jan. 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.

The Dumpling Divide: Food and Family in Crazy Rich Asians by Savanna Mathis Jon Chu’s modern day romantic comedy, Crazy Rich Asians (2018), follows Chinese American Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) as she travels with her boyfriend, Nick (Henry Golding), to Singapore to meet his family. Upon her arrival, Rachel learns that she is much more out of touch with her Asian roots than she thought, feeling like an outsider among people of her own origin. One of the most prominent disconnects for Rachel is the importance of and many traditions surrounding food in Asian culture and specifically her boyfriend’s family. One of the most enthralling scenes concerning food in this film comes when Nick and Rachel sit down with his family to make dumplings. As flour flies across the table and laughter fills the room, Rachel is amused by the “cuteness” of folding dumplings as her boyfriend demonstrates. But Nick’s mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), is quick to burst Rachel’s bubble when she criticizes Rachel’s desire to chase her passions, emphasizing the importance of family and preserving traditions such as hand wrapping dumplings. This debacle over dumplings not only emphasizes the importance of traditions, but also the importance of remaining in touch with one’s heritage. Although living in Singapore, Nick’s family is Chinese and their relationship with food is what keeps their heritage intact while being an immigrant family. Even though Rachel is Chinese as well, she does not understand their familial views because of her upbringing in the US and she has experienced less direct contact with Chinese culture. This film and its relationship to food produce many lessons about family and culture. At first glance, food in this film appears to be a force of division and inflicting criticism on one’s way of life. But these food traditions actually promote love, growth, and togetherness. Although Rachel struggles to grasp the familial and cultural ties to dumplings and other foods throughout the film, these experiences give her the chance to grow in her Asian identity. This journey with food for Rachel only strengthens her love for Nick, allowing them to overcome their cultural divides. Crazy Rich Asians, Dir. Jon Chu. Warner Bros. 2018.

The Invention of Leftovers by Meg Van Cleve Food has to be important to a film set in the Stone Age. The Croods is a tale of adolescent groaning pains and family perseverance, but it revolves around the primal fear of getting enough food without being food for something else. The opening scene shows the Crood family, led by father and patriarch Grug, embarking on a routine hunting mission amidst desolate surroundings. This is directly after a monologue by Eep, the protagonist and Grug’s oldest daughter, explaining the current and extremely cyclical reality of her family. As the only survivors in their neighborhood the Croods spend most of their time barricaded in a cave as a safety precaution. Grug only lets them outside to hunt, and as we see from this early scene pickings are scarce and predators are plenty. The plot thickens when Eep meets Guy, a radical lone wolf who is innovative and entrepreneurial. Eep is drawn to Guy’s fire, a substance she has never seen and a tool which Guy later uses to save Eep’s family when they are forced out of their cave. Grug resents Guy’s new ideas and inventions, claiming that sticking to tradition is safest, but Eep and the rest of the family disagree. Guy’s outside-the-box thinking has secured them a new way of life, one they won’t give up for a repetitive life in a dark cave. The Crood’s newfound access to excess food, or “leftovers” as Guy calls them, causes immense personal, social, and geographic growth and propels the entire plot of the movie. With fire in the picture, The Croods can cook, scare predators, and keep warm while traveling place to place in confidence. Despite much stubbornness and confusion, Grug comes around to Guy’s inventive style and even becomes inventive himself. The Crood family thrives as they learn to work as a unit and adopt new ideas, all while roaming their prehistoric world. Food is freedom, and The Croods shows us how important it is to keep learning, keep community, and keep eating. Chris Sanders & Kirk DeMicco. (2013). The Croods. DreamWorks Animation.

Torn Between Two Flavors: The Conflicting Palates of Tenderness and Desire by Zoe Wall Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 romance film, Crossing Delancey, explores a woman’s conflicting feelings towards two romantic opportunities and their corresponding diets: one panders to her desire of success and upscale lifestyle, and the other deepens her understanding of herself as well as of her preconceived notions of the world around her. The main character, Izzy, is a working woman who is excited by her establishment in the high-class New York bookstore scene and less excited by the thought of being set up with a man by her spunky, overbearing Bubbie. She reluctantly meets Sam Posner, a pickle man with a setup on the Lower East Side, who expresses genuine interest and kindness towards her. Meanwhile, Izzy is drawn to the allure and intellectuality of famous romance writer Anton Maes, whom she yearns to impress. The culture of Jewish New York is continuously established by the rich food imagery surrounding the characters. Her attraction to some foods and repulsion from others exemplifies her struggle between her opposing desires for what the men offer. Through the meals Izzy enjoys (and does not enjoy), Crossing Delancey considers what qualities one should prioritize when seeking to form a relationship. Though Izzy finds Sam to have a deep understanding of life and a genuine desire to know her as a person, she finds it difficult to let herself appreciate his offers of care. She is turned off by his working-class profession of running a pickle stand, which demonstrates her preoccupation with upper-class ideals. In a pivotal scene, Izzy happily strolls toward his place of work, delighted by the new hat he sent her, but her face falls after taking in the details of his labor. His hands are slicked with brine and spices as he shoves his whole arm down into the pickle barrels, emerging with a fist full of them. She chooses to reject him instead of agreeing to another date. The sharp pungency of the pickles and the imposing silhouette of the pickle bins serve to sour Izzy on her relationship with the pickle man. While she is put off by the food offered by one admirer, she finds herself drawn to the suggestive nature of the other man’s offerings. Izzy’s infatuation with Anton is furthered during a rich lunch that he enjoys with her. The high-class meal includes wine and lunch, and even when Izzy declines Anton’s offer of dessert, he orders rich cake and tarts for the two of them. After Izzy admits she does not have much going on in her romantic life, Anton responds by reciting lines of poetry—“Ripe plums are falling / Now there are only three / May a fine lover come for me.” At the end of lunch, he tells her that there are “lots of plums left on [her] tree,” which reveals that he believes her youth and desirability have not withered away yet. He invites her into an affair with him by feeding her decadent, luxurious foods (literally and figuratively), and this temptation causes her feelings for Sam to wane. Ironically, she is to Anton as Sam is to her; Anton refers to her as “like a good, simple pudding” that is “served up gracefully,” even though she wants to be considered a complex and respected person. Anton does not appeal to her emotional side, only her desires for a love affair and success, and these qualities are revealed through the sweet and sultry food imagery brought about by his presence. While the characters experience the most important turning points in the story, they are surrounded by food especially. Vast arrays of bread and bagels denote the area’s Jewish heritage. Izzy is shown purchasing a hot dog from a vendor when all of a sudden, a woman singing opera about finding one’s soulmate enters, giving Izzy the realization that “once [she has] found him,” she should “never let him go.” This casual daytime interaction causes Izzy to reconsider her feelings for Sam. Bubbie’s kitchen, in particular, is the locus for the majority of the development of Izzy’s relationship with Sam. When Sam and Izzy first meet, they are crowded in her Bubbie’s kitchen with Bubbie and the matchmaker she hired despite Izzy’s complaints. The food served overwhelms the table and establishes a feeling of the overbearing and pushy nature of the meeting. Izzy does not eat, which signifies her refusal to cooperate with the whole process. Later on, after she rejects him, Sam runs into Izzy in the kitchen after eating lunch earned by cleaning Bubbie’s windows. The awkward interaction exposes the main source of her conflict with him—he confronts her about how she thinks his world is “small and provincial,” yet she shares with him that she wants “to get it right.” In the last scene of the film, Sam and Izzy return to the kitchen once more, this time sharing coffee after she abandoned him for Anton. She remarks that they “can’t seem to get out of this kitchen,” and she realizes that Sam has soaked his hands in sweet-smelling vanilla and milk to take away their briny scent. This final communion between the two allows Izzy to see in Sam what she has been ignoring and allows Sam to forgive her once more for it. Izzy must decide between two options for romance much in the way we must decide what to enjoy for a meal—does she give in to the temptation of decadent saccharine treats, or will she appreciate the food that is lovingly crafted and served every day? She is enticed by Anton’s plums and repulsed by Sam’s pickles, meanwhile navigating through a world full of loaves of bread and marketed vegetables. By exploring Izzy’s options through the various tastes and feelings they evoke, Crossing Delancey causes us to wonder how we would decide which one to savor. Crossing Delancey. Dir. Joan Micklin Silver. Perf. Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, and Jeroen Krabbé. Warner Bros., 1988. Streaming.

Food Can Buy Love by Abhishek Das In Habib Faisal’s classic Bollywood film, Daawat-e-Ishq (translated as “Feast of Love”), the protagonist, Gullu, comes to trust her love, Tariq. She has believed men to be materialistic low-lives who marry women for the purposes of dowry and physical desire. Gullu’s recognition of Tariq’s authentic love for food proves that his love for her is genuine as well. At the onset of the film, Gullu believes men only hold materialistic desire in their quest for marriage. In the film, this desire is observed as multiple men wish to marry Gullu only to acquire a dowry. A dowry in Indian culture is defined as assets the bride’s family gives to the groom during marriage in exchange for the bride living with the groom’s family. In the beginning of the film, when Gullu thinks she found love with a rich man, she becomes vengeful as he asks for a large dowry for marriage. She states “He said ‘I love you’ one hundred times… Amju, how can you ask me for money if you love me?… Leave! Just Leave!” This failed relationship reaffirms her belief that all men are materialistic in desire for marriage. Later in the movie, Gullu meets a successful and popular man in Tariq who shows love and emotion for others in his enthusiastic style of food preparation. An example of his selflessness appears when he decides against a dowry for marriage from Gullu’s family, showing that he is a pure and genuine man in “If a girl tricks guys, they are low-life… but boys keep demanding dowry, and they are still innocent.” Tariq’s social acceptance of Gullu shows his non-materialistic attitude towards marriage. Tariq uses a combination of song, dance, and love for food to create social unity among those around him. At the beginning of the film, he creates an enormous musical scene (Figure 1) where he declares his love for Gullu by creating an assortment of curries and spices to eat and uses kitchenware to make a euphonic rhythm one might find in a kitchen. This blend of sounds and sight brings all customers, including Gullu, in his restaurant together to enjoy a spirited song and delicious meal. By the end of the film, Gullu becomes less materialistic herself in the sense that she does not search for a man who has money, nor does she give up marriage for a dowry. In her loving words to Tariq, which shows the importance of food in their relationship, she states “I fell in love with you… I just can’t forget the flavors of your speech, your food, or the fun I had with you… I have gotten addicted to your flavors.” Gullu knows her true love in life, and the passion that Tariq shows for his food and its complex preparation reflects the love the couple has for each other. She finds proof in that the purity he treats food with is the same as the purity in which he will treat her. Works Cited Faisal, Habib, director. Daawat-e-Ishq. Yash Raj Films. 2014.

Radical Feasting in Daisies by Olivia Stoll In Věra Chytilová’s surrealist comedy Daisies, two girls named Marie I and Marie II parade around in an endless search for pleasure. The Maries chase attention, sex, and adrenaline, but they adore nothing more than food. “I love eating”, Marie I proclaims. They frequently exploit old, predatory men to earn lavish dinners, which always end with the girls taking off at the train station. The girls continue their constant consumption in their apartment–their favorite snacks being particularly phallic. Marie II relishes in a giant jar of pickles while Marie I chops sausages and bananas with scissors. Chytilova could be contributing to the feminist themes with these choices, or it may be purely comedic. Either way, it's an entertaining image. In the final minutes, the girls stumble upon the motherload of all feasts (pictured here). They ferociously stuff their faces and throw cake across the room until it is a mound of broken glasses and soggy hors d’oeurves. Chytilova’s avant-garde filmmaking style and nontraditional approach to the plot make it difficult to understand everything going on in Daisies, and even more challenging to analyze thematically. However, beyond the chaos emerges anti-war messages and feminist commentaries depicted via the Maries’ relationship with food. Banned by the Czech parliament within months after its release, Daisies is undeniably a political film. Chytilova pushes the audience to contextualize the film politically by including World War II (1939-45) footage in the opening credits. Czechoslovakia was under Russian Communist rule during the release of Daisies, and in some ways, Marie I and Marie II are stand-ins for power-hungry political leaders (i.e. Stalin and Lenin). The scene that most overtly demonstrates this symbolism is the final feast. The girls cause mass destruction in the dining hall while grossly indulging in stolen food and wine. “Was there any possible way to remedy the destruction” (1:10:00), asks the on-screen text over shots of the girls flailing helplessly in a river. “Even if they were given the chance, at best it would look like this” (1:10:50). The scene cuts to Marie I and Marie II attempting to put the dining hall back in order. They scoop the mushy remnants of food back onto the dirty trays and arrange shards of broken plates into poorly reconstructed circles. “But this is not a problem” Marie II whispers before the film implies they get crushed by a falling chandelier or blown up or both. It’s a bleak ending that alludes to the mass destruction of war and political greed. Although the previous interpretation paints the girls as mostly evil, a feminist approach to reading Daisies would classify Marie I and Marie II as simply rebellious. They refuse to adhere to the patriarchal norms that dictate how women should behave, particularly around food. The men they exploit at restaurants are appalled with how much food the girls order and how proudly they stuff their faces. There’s a moment where Marie II prods Marie I’s bare stomach with a fork, “I don’t see any other meat around here, how about this?”, she says (00:34:55). Marie becomes the food, poking fun at the way that these men obsessively indulge in women like they are expensive meat. The whole scene plays over a voicemail from a rejected lover professing his feelings for an indifferent Marie I, which furthers the feminist message. The majority of Daisies is celebratory and careless, which aligns with the feminist interpretation. However, Chytilová is very particular about her political message and the most poignant scenes use feasting to convey radical perspectives. Despite the bleak messages, Daisies is a wonderfully unique, wild watch with food as the artistic subject of Chytilová’s surrealist filmmaking. You’ll never see another film quite like it. Daisies. Dir. Věra Chytilová. 1966. HBO Max, https://www.hbomax.com/.

Eat to Live by Kennedy Thompson Delicatessen, a 1991 French post-apocalyptic comedy, shows the effects of food depletion on humankind. As is the case in post-apocalyptic worlds, nearly everything in the film has been destroyed, leaving the characters with scant food sources. Mr. Clapet, a landlord and butcher, and his tenants resort to eating humans, and the film portrays the great lengths members of the spunky crew will go in order to survive. Food indicates the characters’ approaches to survival and the degree to which they hold tight to their humanity and sanity. Mr. Clapet, who is the spearhead of the cannibalistic operation, scams people with advertisements that offer room and board in exchange for handiwork so that he can butcher the respondents to feed his daughter, Juliet, and his tenants. Louison is one of the unfortunate respondents. Initially, his frail frame does not please the residents because the last newcomer only lasted one week of meals. Louison moves in anyway, unaware of the nefarious happenings, and engages in a romantic relationship with Juliet. Juliet, whose nightmares indicate she struggles with her cannibalistic activity, grasps for a bit of normalcy by inviting Louison for tea and something resembling crackers. Her flustered treatment of food in the scene reveals her anxiety as she tries to reconcile her romantic feelings for Louison with her knowledge that her father plans to butcher him. A medium long shot zooms in to a medium shot as Juliet nervously moves about the kitchen, rehearsing her interaction with Louison. She situates the tea and crackers nearly 10 times and even practices offering Louison a cup. The camera tracks Louison as he enters and takes the seat that Juliet established for herself, which flusters her even more. After nearly spilling on Louison and overflowing her own cup, Juliet offers Louison a bland, flat cracker. He hesitates, obliges, and nibbles the corner. Juliet skirts around the cannibalistic activities when she says, “usually people only think of themselves these days,” to which Louison replies that is only natural. Parallel editing interrupts the scene to show a discussion between Robert and Aurore, who loses her sanity and hears voices. Juxtaposing Aurore’s erratic behavior with Juliet’s nervous behavior indicates Juliet’s mental state fairs better. Returning to Juliet’s flat, an unfocused point of view shot indicates she is so rattled that her vision blurs. Overcome with guilt in response to a story Louison tells about a friend who was eaten, Juliet begins to warn him of the plan and then stops, opting to enjoy the pleasant moment instead. The almost-charming tea scene indicates that in order to survive, Juliet clings to remaining shreds of superficial normalcy by stifling her guilt and carrying on as usual. Other characters opt for other means of survival. Immediately before the tea scene, Frog Man’s lair is introduced. Frog Man’s decision to seclude himself in a dank room, where he lives among frogs and gorges on snails, offers another approach to survival. His flooded den, green with botanical growth and piled high with snail shells, is the only green location, departing from the film’s otherwise warm and monochromatic palette. Such contrast in color intensifies his isolation and makes clear his intention to reject the rest of the tenants. Isolation chips away at his sanity, as he apologizes to a snail he named Hercules by saying, “every man for himself,” before popping it in his mouth. The film ends with Juliet and Louison’s narrow escape from the hungry tenants, providing a startling glimpse of what people are capable of in times of famine. It raises ideas regarding how far people will go when they are forced to eat to live rather than enjoy. Works Cited: Delicatessen. Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, performance by Dominique Pinon and Marie-Laure Dougnac, 1991.

The Price of Victory by Mary Scott Brisson Don’t Worry Darling (2022) follows a complex plot that centers around the 1950s housewife, Alice Chambers, as she begins to uncover disturbing truths about her seemingly perfect life in remote California desert town, Victory. Despite the idyllic community of Victory, she feels progressively emptier with each passing day. In the supposedly utopian society, all husbands work on a classified project during the day while the wives bask in their seemingly perfect and lavish lifestyle. As glimpses of deep imperfections embedded in her life begin to appear through psychological flashes, Alice questions what every other housewife dares not ask: what exactly is going on in Victory? Given the 1950s backdrop of the film, traditional sit-down family dinners are a regular occurrence in the film. Moreover, Alice and her fellow Victory housewives are responsible for the preparation of each grand dinner, which often includes neighbors and their children. Women’s expectation to prepare elaborate dinners and open up their homes to their husband’s friends act as a device of control, deception, and oppression in the film. On many accounts, the way the characters interact over dinner reflect the societal pressures and expectations placed on the housewives of Victory. In one specific scene, Alice begins to question her reality while hosting three other couples. The scene serves a two fold purpose–it sheds light on the expectations of female behavior during the era while also capturing how dinner parties involving alcohol lend themselves to taboos or irreverent conversation. The role of food and feasts in the film are integral to the plot as they offer a setting for Alice to challenge her sense of reality. The era the movie takes place in further complicates her doing so as traditional repression of females’ opinions, desires, and complaints is highlighted. In another comically inept and sexist moment of Jack, Alice’s husband, Jack, attempts to prepare dinner for his wife as she naps through dinner. It appears as though this is the first time she has ever not made dinner due to Jack’s gross incompetence in the kitchen. His culinary efforts include attempting to mash potatoes vigorously by using a whiskey bottle, which results in an unintentional kitchen fire. Upon Alice’s entrance to the scene, it appears as though she finds the scene endearing. She quickly steps in to salvage the meal. This scene reinforces traditional gender roles, inadvertently normalizing men’s lack of involvement within the domestic realm, and glamorizes benevolent sexism through Alice’s perception of the scene as “cute” and excusable. The film utilizes fancy dinner parties and traditional domestic female roles and domains to heighten its viewers' understanding of the plot. Both scenes demonstrate how deeply ingrained food and eating are in subcultures. It further reminds its viewers of how gender has evolved to have different relationships to food, eating, and the preparation of food. Don’t Worry Darling. Dir. Olivia Wilde. By Katie Silberman. Perf. Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Olvia Wilde, and Chris Pine. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2022. DVD.

Feeding the Body and Soul by Sofia Soto Sugar In Ryan Murphy’s 2010 film, based on a book of the same name by Elizabeth Gilbert, writer Liz (Julia Roberts) uses food as part of her journey. Finding herself divorced and completely lost, she comes to terms with her mid-life crisis of sorts and embarks on a worldwide trip to find herself through food, spirituality, and love. The heavy emphasis on food, eating, and feeding oneself in this film emphasizes the role of food in healing. But it is just that: a role. This film makes it clear that food is not the only component of healing, nor the most important part, but a component that cannot be missed. The story is broken up into 4 segments: an introductory part about her life in New York City, the “Eat” chapter in Italy, the “Pray” chapter in India, and the “Love” chapter in Bali. This film, it is important to note, does not display food and eating in any part other than the scenes in Italy, except for a brief cooking scene in Bali – even then, the characters are not shown eating the food made. This compartmentalization functions not to diminish the importance of food, but to highlight it through a specific chapter of her life. Amidst all her loss, Liz talks to Delia (Viola Davis) about how she no longer has an appetite for food or for life, she no longer takes the time to marvel. After a brief but passionate relationship with a young actor (James Franco), she chooses to go to Italy because she wants an experience that will indulge all of her senses, to rekindle her appetite. Her newfound relationship with food allows her to relearn who she is, what she is composed of, and how to best take care of herself. This comes in the form of physical feeding, most notably in where Liz indulges in the most comforting and filling foods in a way that pleases all her senses without really being gluttonous. Likewise, she feeds her well-being by learning to appreciate herself and her body image again. In the first figure, Liz is telling her friend Sofi (Tuva Novotny) to enjoy the food without worrying about weight while eating a world-renowned pizza in Napoli. Liz’s experiences eating in Italy made her comfortable with herself again at a time when she was so low and lost, and gave her a new support system in the friends that she made there. In Figure 2, Liz enjoys a full meal with the family she has made for herself, the people that taught her how to speak Italian and navigate the new country and culture. Just as “Eat” is only a chapter in Liz’s journey, food can serve as a part of the healing and nourishing process but not without the help of other things. Food alone cannot heal, but when combined with a certain level of spirituality (not always religious) and love (for others, for oneself, and acceptance of it), it can truly leave you full.

The Devouring Ego in Eating Raoul by Ethan Leonard In a portrait of the apex of the Californian counterculture in the sixties, the essayist Joan Didion turns repeatedly to Max, a Hippie she encountered during her time in San Francisco. In one particular moment of reminiscence, Didion recalls how “Max is telling me how he lives free of all the old middle-class Freudian hang-ups… [He] sees his life as a triumph over ‘don’ts.’ The don’ts he had done before he was 21 were peyote, alcohol, mescaline, and Methedrine. He was on a Meth trip for three years in New York and Tangier before he found acid” (Didion). Although the world of Paul Bartel’s film Eating Raoul is radically removed from Didion’s both chronologically and geographically, it is nonetheless the voice of Max and his generation, a clarion call to corrosive liberation through cannibalistic indulgence and transgression, which lingers over the film as an almost silent narrator. The plot of Eating Raoul revolves around Paul and Mary Bland, played respectively by Bartel himself and Warhol acolyte Mary Woronov, a couple so conventional as to almost seem Puritan, and their efforts to navigate their own dire financial straits to open a restaurant. Opportunity arrives for the Blands in the form of a refugee from one of the regular swingers parties in the Blands’ apartment building, whose behavior results in an altercation that ends in his inadvertent murder at the hands of Paul, who discovers that his actions have produced a remarkable amount of revenue from the victim’s wallet. This incident gives birth to a lucrative business of Mary masquerading as a dominatrix in order to lure men to their home, only for Paul to kill them with a frying pan and steal their wallets. It’s a model which operates with an almost mechanical proficiency until the eponymous Raoul Mendoza, a part time locksmith and full time thief, discovers their secret while attempting to rob the Bland’s apartment. In exchange for not reporting on each other, the Bland’s strike a bargain with Raoul: he can keep the possessions of the victims to pawn off, while they keep the money. Things go awry rather quickly, however, upon Paul’s discovery that not only is Raoul having an affair with his wife, but also selling the victim’s corpses to a dog food factory for additional profit. Tensions rise until a confrontation between Raoul and the Blands ends with Raoul being killed. The Blands then serve him in a cannibalistic feast to their real estate agent while they finalize the deal for their new restaurant. The film then fades into its final shot of the couple standing in front of “Paul and Mary’s Country Kitchen.” Eating Raoul is set in Los Angeles in 1982, a place where, according to the film’s opening narration, “sex hunger is reflected everywhere in daily life… And the barrier between food and sex has totally dissolved” (00:01:15). The world of the film and its inhabitants are very much the progeny of the sixties’ revolutionary ethos, yet mutated, or perhaps complemented by, the valorized capitalism of the Reagan Era. Sexual and financial predation have been fully wedded. At one point a banker, attempting to extort sex from Mary in exchange for a loan, brags about how liberated he is. The ostensibly revolutionary debauchery of the counterculture has diffused throughout all of society, seeping into its highest echelons, creating an environment in which Haight Ashbury and Wall Street have collapsed into each other. The dissolution of the liberating ethos of the sixties in Eating Raoul crystallizes the role cannibalism plays in the film, this being as a devouring cultural force. In addition to its commentary on the elision of the boundary between sex and food, the opening narration also discusses how “it is a known fact that prolonged exposure to just such a psychopathic environment will eventually warp even the most decent and normal among us” (00:02:10). One can therefore watch the movie as a saga of the Blands themselves being devoured by the hedonism and depravity of their world, watching as their tastes and values are fed into the maelstrom of self fulfillment and ambition. At the same time, the inverse can be claimed, that Paul and Mary are both physical and cultural cannibals in how they take the climate of sexual liberation and use it to trap their prey. They feast on the bloated corpse of the sixties and, to this extent, their refusal to partake in its countercultural decadence acts as a type of sly subversion against the world and power structures that such beliefs have been inextricably woven into. By the end of the film, however, this becomes a sort of autocannibalism. The Blands, as the movie promised, have been warped by the debauched environment they live in. When Raoul is finally eaten in the movie’s closing feast, it is a tripartite act of cannibalism, suicide, and rebirth. Intersecting worlds of gratification pulse through the film, the promises of financial success, sexual ecstasy, and power, position the characters against each other, cause them to retreat into themselves and view others as instruments of achieving their own desires. Three years after Didion had chronicled the origins of this society in San Francisco, she attempted to create a more complete portrait of this type of indulgence and irreality in American life, labeling the phenomena as “Dreampolitik” (Didion 96). Nine years later, the cultural critic Christopher Lasch would elaborate upon this notion in his seminal work The Culture of Narcissism, writing that “sexual relations thus become manipulative and predatory. Satisfaction depends on taking what you want instead of waiting for what is rightfully yours to receive. All this enters everyday speech in language that connects sex with aggression…” (Lasch 84). Through this lens, food in Eating Raoul becomes a symbol for how other people are viewed by the characters. When Paul visits a swingers party in his apartment at the beginning of the film, the host describes it as a “free candy store [where] you can eat anything you want” (11:56). The Blands themselves undergo a similar shift in perception, with Mary referring to a group of swingers metonymically as “two Guccis coming on to a Pierre Cardin” (1:11:32). There is an implication throughout the film that this sort of metaphorical cannibalism can only sustain one’s desires for so long, eventually the mentality that humans are instruments for consumption will transform into one which sees humans as something to be physically consumed. The movie is, in many ways, a chronicle of the Blands’ submission to this ethos, their coming to see, as Didion put it, “life as a triumph over ‘don’ts,’” moving from robbery, to murder, to serial killing, and eventually cannibalism. Transgression is defined in the film as something that lacks any sort of telos, which may be taken as far in the direction of depravity as the ego may allow, and it is above all the ego which dominates the universe of the film. Didion, Joan. “Notes Towards Dreampolitik.” The White Album, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1979, pp. 96–105. Didion, Joan. “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” Saturday Evening Post, 1967, https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/06/didion/. Eating Raoul. Dir. Paul Bartel, perf. Paul Bartel, Mary Woronow, and Robert Beltran. Janus Films, 1982. Lasch, Chistopher. The Culture Of Narcissism: American Life In An Age Of Diminishing Expectations. Norton, 1979.

Food: Breaking the Status Quo by Jalen Heyward Released in 2003, Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-off is a Disney Channel original movie about a young boy, Eddie Ogden, who struggles to balance his passions for both baseball and cooking. This film is one of many that tries to break stereotypes of gender roles through society, and does an excellent job by relating it to cooking. In the end ironically, food ,which was originally the conflict of the movie, brings Eddie, his father, and his friends closer together embracing and supporting Eddie’s passion for cooking, and breaking the status quo. Eddie is a teenager at Cedar Valley High School and is the star player for the Groundhogs, coached by his father. Eddie’s father wants him to obtain a scholarship for his baseball skill, however Eddie, along with playing baseball, also enjoys watching The Food Network and cooking food for his friends; especially his signature Eddie Dog. He loves cooking so much that instead of registering for the computer science elective his brothers recommended he enroll in, he goes behind their backs and registers for home economics. Through that home economics class he is eligible to enter a cooking competition and ultimately put his passion to the test. Eddie has to create an original recipe and submit it in secrecy leading to many comedic scenes like Figure 1. This movie had many scenes that gradually suspended the culinary social norm that only women are supposed to cook. Generally speaking, it is expected for women to be the caretakers and men to be the providers in Western society. This expectation can be traced back to the hunter-gatherer communities that existed in prehistoric times. Usually men were the ones who traveled and hunted animals, while the women would stay back and harvest crops, and take care of the youth. This way of life has trickled down and influenced modern day stereotypes about cooking. This film does a great job of showing the gender role theme and the taboo of men cooking in today’s society, because Eddie has to hide his passion for cooking from his father. Eddie’s friends and his father consider cooking a “girl’s hobby” and say that Eddie needs to focus on baseball. For example, in one scene, Eddie was coming back from his baseball practice. His mother comes back home with groceries and ends up buying too many. She tells Eddie to put up the extra groceries; however, instead of obeying his mother, he prepares a chicken dinner. When his family comes back they are astonished at how amazing the dinner looks and tastes. The cinematography has a variety of close-ups and medium-shots of the characters’ facial expressions and how they fight for the last pieces of chicken. Instead of appreciating and thanking Eddie for the meal that he prepares, his father and brothers insult him and give him backhanded complements. His brothers say things like “Eddie is the sister we never had” and nicknames him “Eddie Crocker.” These comments go along with the status quo and suggests that only women are supposed to cook. The climax of the movie is what breaks the status quo regarding men and cooking. Eddie’s championship game and the day of the cook-off are on the same day at the same time. Eddie chooses to play in the game due to outside influence from his friends and father. During the game, Eddie’s teammates watch the cook-off in the dugout. They realize that Eddie is sacrificing his passion for cooking just for their happiness. The simultaneous contests allow his friends to measure his passion and realize that cooking is not just a girls activity.. His friends tell Eddie that he can leave the game and participate in the cook-off and he accepts the offer. They say that they are proud of him no matter what. Eddie’s father eventually follows him to the cook-off to tell him that he is proud of him and offers to help. Eddie and his father bond over cooking at the end of the film as Eddie sees his father properly dice onions and crack an egg. His father showed culinary expertise breaking the stereotype that only women can and should cook. Even though Eddie loses the competition, he pursues something he loves and his family and friends are proud and respect it. Eddie’s passion for food and cooking brings his friends and father closer together and teaches them to be less driven by stereotypes and gradually break the status quo.

Food: Breaking the Status Quo by Jalen Heyward Released in 2003, Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-off is a Disney Channel original movie about a young boy, Eddie Ogden, who struggles to balance his passions for both baseball and cooking. This film is one of many that tries to break stereotypes of gender roles through society, and does an excellent job by relating it to cooking. In the end ironically, food ,which was originally the conflict of the movie, brings Eddie, his father, and his friends closer together embracing and supporting Eddie’s passion for cooking, and breaking the status quo. Eddie is a teenager at Cedar Valley High School and is the star player for the Groundhogs, coached by his father. Eddie’s father wants him to obtain a scholarship for his baseball skill, however Eddie, along with playing baseball, also enjoys watching The Food Network and cooking food for his friends; especially his signature Eddie Dog. He loves cooking so much that instead of registering for the computer science elective his brothers recommended he enroll in, he goes behind their backs and registers for home economics. Through that home economics class he is eligible to enter a cooking competition and ultimately put his passion to the test. Eddie has to create an original recipe and submit it in secrecy leading to many comedic scenes like Figure 1. This movie had many scenes that gradually suspended the culinary social norm that only women are supposed to cook. Generally speaking, it is expected for women to be the caretakers and men to be the providers in Western society. This expectation can be traced back to the hunter-gatherer communities that existed in prehistoric times. Usually men were the ones who traveled and hunted animals, while the women would stay back and harvest crops, and take care of the youth. This way of life has trickled down and influenced modern day stereotypes about cooking. This film does a great job of showing the gender role theme and the taboo of men cooking in today’s society, because Eddie has to hide his passion for cooking from his father. Eddie’s friends and his father consider cooking a “girl’s hobby” and say that Eddie needs to focus on baseball. For example, in one scene, Eddie was coming back from his baseball practice. His mother comes back home with groceries and ends up buying too many. She tells Eddie to put up the extra groceries; however, instead of obeying his mother, he prepares a chicken dinner. When his family comes back they are astonished at how amazing the dinner looks and tastes. The cinematography has a variety of close-ups and medium-shots of the characters’ facial expressions and how they fight for the last pieces of chicken. Instead of appreciating and thanking Eddie for the meal that he prepares, his father and brothers insult him and give him backhanded complements. His brothers say things like “Eddie is the sister we never had” and nicknames him “Eddie Crocker.” These comments go along with the status quo and suggests that only women are supposed to cook. The climax of the movie is what breaks the status quo regarding men and cooking. Eddie’s championship game and the day of the cook-off are on the same day at the same time. Eddie chooses to play in the game due to outside influence from his friends and father. During the game, Eddie’s teammates watch the cook-off in the dugout. They realize that Eddie is sacrificing his passion for cooking just for their happiness. The simultaneous contests allow his friends to measure his passion and realize that cooking is not just a girls activity.. His friends tell Eddie that he can leave the game and participate in the cook-off and he accepts the offer. They say that they are proud of him no matter what. Eddie’s father eventually follows him to the cook-off to tell him that he is proud of him and offers to help. Eddie and his father bond over cooking at the end of the film as Eddie sees his father properly dice onions and crack an egg. His father showed culinary expertise breaking the stereotype that only women can and should cook. Even though Eddie loses the competition, he pursues something he loves and his family and friends are proud and respect it. Eddie’s passion for food and cooking brings his friends and father closer together and teaches them to be less driven by stereotypes and gradually break the status quo.

The Proof is in the Pudding: Food and Reality by Olivia Holder Enchanted (2007) follows the story of Giselle from the morning of her storybook wedding as she prepares to marry the Prince (Edward) of her dreams in the fairytale land of Andelasia, to her involuntary collision with the real world, a collision orchestrated by the evil Queen. The story tracks her strange and unexpected journey into the foreign land of New York City. One of Giselle’s woodland friends, Pip, accompanies Edward to rescue Giselle, but their efforts are constantly thwarted by the Nathaniel, the evil Queen’s henchman, as he secretly assists the Queen in her attempts to guard her throne from the unsuspecting Giselle. Meanwhile in New York City, Giselle finds friends in Robert and his six-year-old daughter. Like the classic fairytales that have come before, Enchanted features the fight between good and evil, but in this instance with a biblical twist redolent of the Book of Genesis. Also at odds with each other in this film are storybook optimism and clear-eyed realism. In this movie food serves dual yet connected purposes. It is a medium employed to bring the viewer’s attention the biblical allusions in the story and herald the new ways that Giselle assimilates to the real world. Thus food bridges the two worlds, the fairytale land and the harsh reality of New York, it brings in fantastical themes that complement the real world in the form of the biblical, and it also serves as a benchmarks for Giselle’s progress in becoming ‘real.’ The apple, in the popular imagination, is thought to be the tantalizing fruit that humanity lusted after in the Garden of Eden. Eve’s temptation was described as “good for food” (3:6) and “a delight to the eyes ” (3:6). Similarly, Giselle’s poison apples are presented to her to by the evil Queen or her henchman in the most delicious fashions – as a caramel apple; an apple martini; and a great, glossy, juicy, red apple. The camera emphasizes the arrival of each apple with a close-up positioned directly between the viewer’s line of vision and the impressed face of Giselle, highlighting their holding power. Eve ate the fruit because “it was to be desired to make one wise” (3:6). Giselle eventually eats her apple in a similar attempt to gain agency over her situation; Eve sought the knowledge of God and Giselle wishes to regain her former blissful ignorance of pain. The state of ignorance that Giselle sought was that of her life in the fairytale land Andelasia, one not dissimilar from the shalom of the Garden of Eden. In fact, just as the beguiling serpent is responsible for humankind’s removal from the garden, so too is Giselle’s exile from Andelasia the doing of the evil witch. In the transition from fairy book land to the real world the fantastical changes to adapt to forms that fit the real world. This motif of the tantalizing apple that reoccurs through the film ensures that arguably greatest tale of the cosmic battle between good and evil remains in the viewer’s conscience and is applied to moral forces in the story. The unassuming but stalwart chipmunk, Pip, is valorized in one particular scene in which he was entombed in a box of popcorn by Nathaniel to prevent him from foiling his plans to seduce Giselle with a poison apple. He “rises again” thrusting his claws through the paper popcorn box in front of a still, waiting camera. Once caught again, he is clipped into a clothes hanger with his hands outstretched on the wood frame. A low angle that zooms out gives viewer time to observe his heroic, endurance of the pain and shame and also provides the opportunity to appreciate in Pip’s symbolic position. Thus, following from the introduction by the apple, Pip himself is emblematic of the transition from Andelasia to New York, from fairy magic to biblical tradition. Other than tying in biblical themes, food also acts as an indicator of Giselle’s progress in adapting to the real world. When showing her Central Park, Robert introduces Giselle to a hot dog. Upon tasting it she exclaims, “This was so yummy. I didn’t know food could taste like this!” Through this it is clear that the senses are heightened in the real world; tastes are more complicated. This increased complexity is found in the filmography too. The fairytale world is one of flat, simple animations and pastel bright colors. The details that the camera records of the faces, objects and landscapes contrast with the simplicity of Andelasia. The colors of the movie are on the whole bright but still realistic. The steady optimistic hope that characterized the fairy book land is replaced with a clearly defined, and far more complex palette than just pastel colors. Food set the scene and established a new relationship between Giselle and Robert at the “date” sequence. The scene is begun with an establishing shot of the moon over the city accompanied by the sung line “When the moon hits your eye like a large pizza pie that’s amore.” It is then followed by extreme close up of a sizable pizza pie shown at an overhead angle. As the camera zooms out it revealed that Giselle and Robert are sitting alone at a table of a nice restaurant surrounded by food, the very requirements stated earlier in the film for a date. Although Robert denies that this dinner is a date, the idea is planted firmly in the viewer’s mind that their relationship is heading toward the romantic. In Enchanted, the poisonous apple invites the audience to make the connection between the battle of the forces of good and evil in the film and those of the bible and to mine for the rich allusions that are drawn between the works. Many of the bites that the Giselle takes and meals she takes part in announce the furtherance in her acclimation to the real world. Food may not be the first theme that comes to mind with this fairytale, but it is central to unlocking its many layers. Works Cited: Enchanted. Dir. Kevin Lima. By Bill Kelly. Perf. Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, and Susan Sarandon. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2007. DVD. Holy Bible ESV. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005. Print.

“I just cut them up like regular chickens?” by Rebecca Kirk While David Lynch’s 1977 film “Eraserhead” is not entirely about food, a single scene near the beginning of the film which focuses on the preparation and consumption of food serves to highlight the theme of self-doubt and inadequacy as a parent, which is prevalent throughout the movie. In the dinner scene, the protagonist, Henry, is introduced to his girlfriend Mary’s family, although it is clear that they have not met or communicated for a period of some time. He endures resentful silence on the part of her mother, inexplicable weeping from Mary, and a discordant cheerful nonchalance from her father. The dinner comes to a head as the father introduces the main course, tiny chickens which he has prepared and claims are “manmade.” A previous injury has rendered his arms numb, so usually he entrusts the carving of meats to his daughter for safety’s sake, thus subverting the traditional gender roles of the American household. On this particular night, however, he chooses to ask Henry to carve the chickens instead. Henry expresses nervousness as he prepares to carve the chickens, asking “I just cut them up… like regular chickens?” When he attempts to do so, a dark, blood-like liquid begins to pour from the body cavity and the tiny manmade chicken moves its limbs as though they are arms and legs. This disturbs the mother and her daughter, but the father simply grins at Henry, unperturbed, and lets an uncomfortable amount of time pass before asking “So, what do you know?” Later in the evening it is revealed that Mary has given birth to Henry’s child, although it is premature and very deformed. The still I have chosen from “Eraserhead” captures a moment of transfer, the power as man of the house passing from Mary’s father to Henry. The dining room is stark and dimly lit, a characteristic of the entire film, although both of the men are seated in front of blocks of relative brightness. Their gazes are masked from the audience, but the chicken is kept at center stage as Henry pauses in his attempt to carve the chicken, looking to the more experienced but now-emasculated older man for advice on how his duty should be performed. The chicken itself is tiny, and its shape evokes that of the deformed baby that will take on a central role in the rest of the film, which culminates in Henry’s decision to kill the baby, as he can no longer endure his own inability to care for it. The implements used to carve the chicken are huge and necessarily clumsy-looking when compared to the tiny, helpless body on the white plate. The people themselves are also ludicrously large in comparison to the meat on the plate, and they loom over it like surgeons, so it becomes farcical that Henry, who appears so competent in his clean black suit, should need advice from the father, whose plumber’s uniform appears much more tired and ill-equipped to the task of butchering a chicken, or raising a child. Perhaps it is due to his poor choice in role model that Henry fails as a parent later in the film. Taken as a whole, the scene is a rather frightening comment on the nature of food and the family. As the only father figure in the movie, Mary’s father is a frightening forewarning of what Henry’s life will become. He cannot fulfill his traditional role due to his injury, and because this flawed man is the only person Henry can turn to for advice, it is not surprising that Henry is unable to safely care for his child in the end. The relationship between the parents is also defined in the dinner, as the wife controls the father at one point by chasing him from the room when she feels he has spoken enough. Thus Henry’s “coming of age” through his chicken carving is an unnatural, stilted one that will define his strained relationship with Mary as they attempt and fail to live together for the sake of their monster baby. Also reflecting back to this scene throughout the movie is the insecurity that Henry faces as a parent. He is not certain on how to treat a chicken so much smaller than normal, just as he cannot understand how to deal with his child, which is different from adults in size and other babies because it is deformed. Even after seeking advice on the proper carving of the chicken, he is alarmed and disturbed as it begins to writhe and gush blood on the plate, and it is clear that his attempt to carve it has backfired. This scene parallels the end scene, in which Henry is disturbed by the constant crying of his infant to the point at which he decides it is extremely sick and tries to care for it as best he can. He chooses to remove its bandages, beneath which he has not seen, but these turn out to have been holding its body together for the entirety of the film and once they are removed, the baby dies. In the end, he is disturbed by ts constant discomfort rather than concerned for its well-being, and finds himself unable to care for it, at times even hating it. It is important to point at that, while the miniature chickens are likened to the body of the baby and seem to be a natural jumping-off point for a discussion of cannibalism, they are never actually consumed by the characters. Thus any discussion about cannibalism as incorporating the essence of the dead into the living does not have a place here, but it is a good platform for the idea of Henry’s difficulty in viewing the child as a human. Indeed, because the chickens are manmade and unnatural, the child to which they are likened is also somehow not only placed on the same level as an animal in Henry’s eyes, but is perhaps even one more step removed from the natural bonds of familial affection which should exist between parent and child. Thus the meaning of the dinner scene in Eraserhead, much of which is summed up in the provided still image, reflects themes that surface again and again throughout the film. The darker side of family life and the subversion of traditional roles, along with the fear, uncertainty, and failure that accompany parenting, make the scene as well as the film a dark but meaningful work.

Does Anything Belong on a Bagel? by Hien Le “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (EEAO) centers around a Chinese housewife, Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh), who has to stop the multiverse from collapsing due to the influence of an entity called, “The Everything Bagel.” A traditional everything bagel consists of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onion, garlic, and salt, but “The Everything Bagel” from EEAO has literally everything on it. The film’s antagonist, Jobu Tupaki (Played by Stephanie Hsu) stated, “I got bored one day, then I put everything in a bagel…everything. All my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every personal ad on Craigslist…sesame…poppy seed…salt, and it collapsed in on itself. ‘Cause you see, when you really put everything on a bagel, it becomes this…the truth" (Figure 1). What people typically consume for a quick breakfast on the go has become something much greater. “The Bagel” represents one side of the philosophical debate within the film of existentialism versus nihilism—does everything truly matter at the end of the day? Nihilism and existentialism are two philosophies that can be used interchangeably, but nihilism focuses on the pessimism of life while existentialism is more focused on the optimism of life (Jun). The film is centered around whether anything truly matters in life, as “The Bagel” was created by Jobu Tupaki because she wants to destroy the multiverse because she cannot find the meaning in life. Jobu Tupaki is the physical embodiment of Evelyn’s daughter, Joy’s depression and generational trauma, believing that creating a multiverse destroying weapon is the only way to bring her issues to Evelyn’s attention. Joy is nihilistic as she cannot see any part of her life as fulfilling anymore, with her being in a constant state of depression. The inverse of “The Bagel'' is represented by the googly eyes seen throughout the film. With googly eyes being visually the inverse of “The Bagel,” it represents the philosophy of existentialism. From Waymond (Played by Ke Huy Quan) placing them everywhere around the laundromat to Evelyn wearing one at the climax of the movie (Figure 2), it shows that life can be hopeful even when everything has gone horribly. Waymond is the character that represents existentialism with his statement of, “So even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say… In another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.” Waymond, even in a different universe with a broken heart, still looks on the bright side of life. Waymond and his kindness sees the world, even though full of chaos, there is still something worth living for and to enjoy every moment of it. Evelyn learns about Waymond’s weaponization of kindness and uses it to “defeat” Jobu by giving her a hug and extending her kindness. “The Bagel” is destroyed once Evelyn and Joy have a true heart-to-heart conversation about whether anything in life matters or not. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Dir. The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) Perf. Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis. A24, 2022 Streaming. Jun, Y. (2022, November 8). “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Explains Existentialism vs. Nihilism. Medium. https://medium.com/illumination/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-explains-existentialism-vs-nihilism-ce5ee9e4000.

A Fox Comes to Terms with not-being a Fox by Katelyn Liu Fantastic Mr. Fox is the Wes Anderson stop-motion film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s original children’s novel, published in 1970. Anderson adapts Dahl’s original characters by giving each anthropomorphic animal a human-like day job and focuses on the strained relationship between Mr. Fox and his son, Ash. But the protagonist’s dilemma remains true through both variations: Mr. Fox steals food for his family from three farmers—Boggis, Bunce, and Bean—and must save the entire animal neighborhood when hunted. There seem to be some inconsistencies in the film representation, however: anthropomorphic opossums battling against rabid beagles and foxes that have phobia of wolves. In the words of Mr. Fox: “What the cuss does this all mean?” The delicate interactions of Mr. Fox and the food around him demonstrate a balance between the wild and the civilized. Before his life of newspaper writing, Mr. Fox had a long history with thievery. Mr. Fox and his wife, Felicity, raided chicken coops and goose farms together until one uneasy heist left them trapped in a cage and Felicity delivering the news of her pregnancy. The deal was that if they survived, Mr. Fox would find a normal job without the life-threatening dangers of stealing food anymore. Years later, we find Mr. Fox unsatisfied with his barely-read column and angsty teenage son, Ash, who does not inherit the innate foxlike athletic abilities that Mr. Fox exhibited in his own youth. Seeing the three most dangerous farmhouses across the field, he cannot help but revert back to his old thieving ways just one last time. Here, we see inner dilemma within Mr. Fox between his wild fox instincts and the civilized nature of the world he belongs to. His comfortable desk job brings home food just like when he used to steal, except it doesn’t quite satisfy him. The intricacies of planning the entry and escape and killing a chicken with one bite are all essential pieces of the job that still fulfills the same function of putting food on the table. This dichotomy within one character is most hilariously demonstrated when Mr. Fox engages in his breakfast meal by devouring and tearing apart the inane humanness reflected in his common breakfast of toast and coffee (Figure 2). Mr. Fox’s uncontrolled and unbridled wildness, however, puts the safety and security of the ones he loves at risk. Even after getting his tail shot off, he has no qualms going out into the night again. When the three fed-up farmers are tired of being stolen from, they parade the tractors in to uproot Mr. Fox’s tree home, forcing his family, along with the rest of the underground brood of badgers, moles, rabbits and others to burrow deep down for physical safety. His own safety does not pose a threat to his instinctual behavior to hunt, but the danger to his family and friends causes him to pause and consider the value and worth of his flagrant and unrestrained thievery. Perhaps the most telling scene comes when Mr. Fox faces his phobia of wolves. Consistently throughout the film, the fearless Mr. Fox would declare, “I have a phobia of wolves.” After escaping the three farmers by riding off in a motorcycle, Mr. Fox stops when he sees a distant lone wolf. The interaction begins with fear but ends in awe. The wolf, faceless and seen standing on four legs opposed the anthropomorphic protagonist that stand on two, does not respond when Mr. Fox calls out to him. From a distance, Mr. Fox, at the conclusion of a one-sided conversation, raises his paw in respect to the wolf who raises one paw in response (Figure 3). At this moment, Mr. Fox releases his phobia of wolves, in recognition that the innate animalism in him has been traded for the intimacy of family in human-like connection. As the lone wolf disappears into the forest, family-less, Mr. Fox goes back to his new sewer home to enjoy a feast with his family and friends (Figure 1). The triumphant return of the successful escapees to an abundant banquet table is enjoyed in a family-like manner as they sit down to enjoy their meal together. In this last moment, Mr. Fox no longer seems to begrudge his cooked, utensil-requiring supper, but embraces the family and friends that surround his dinner table. Work Cited Fantastic Mr. Fox. Dir. Wes Anderson. By Roald Dahl. Perf. by George Clooney and Meryl Streep. 20th Century Fox. 2009.