This week, Rivka and Frank are joined by comedy writer and podcaster Andrew Ti for an insightful discussion about the 1997 Nickelodeon original movie “Good Burger.”
Last year, McDonald’s introduced its first largely automated location, which raised serious questions about the future of food service workers. Roughly 3.6% of the America workforce are employed by the restaurant industry at any given time, so what will happen to those jobs once robots can easily take orders, serve tables, and even cook the food?
With such questions in mind, the group digs into “Good Burger’s” central theme of “good capitalism” versus “bad capitalism,” and how the film propagates the myth that some businesses are “nicer” than others. They also unpack the bizarre racial dynamics of a kids movie written by middle-aged white men, starring Black teenagers, marketed for a white audience — and discuss the incredibly problematic career and legacy of Nickelodeon writer Dan Schneider.
A rough transcript of the episode is available here.
For next week’s movie, MVC will be watching the 1984 military drama “A Soldier’s Story.”
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