Moo, Lies, and Videotape

Cultural phenomena are useful for gauging the hearts and minds of the mainstream American citizens. They highlight not only what was important at that time, but also what events built up to the phenomena. Sometimes, two phenomena are idealistically opposed, and come to head in a very public manner causing radical changes. Two of these phenomena discussed in the book My Year of Meats are corporate values and independent journalism. Companies do not want their secrets exposed and go to great lengths to hide or ‘spin’ them, but journalists feel it is their duty to protect the people by exposing these greedy and harmful companies.

Companies do their best to hide the corporate values they do not want the public to know about. They are afraid of a public backlash against their product, which can bring companies and individuals to ruin. These companies, however, can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they are extremely powerful and often have underhanded government support. They are not afraid of being exposed, because the companies hide their practices so the public will not know about them. The beef industry documented in My Year of Meats had many deplorable practices such as using a chemical called DES to make the cows larger. Larger cows mean increased production, which leads to more profits. DES, however, has many side-effects for the human body such as premature puberty growth. Jane discovered one little girl, five years old, with adult breasts and pubic hair whose body chemistry had been affected by DES. Her family owned cow graze lands that used DES on the cows. Another common form of exposure to DES is doctors who prescribe it to pregnant women. Jane’s defective uterus was the result of her mother receiving DES, and Jane became more prone to pregnancy complications and miscarriages. If Jane and others, whose lives had been affected by DES, had known the dangerous side-effects, they may have avoided it as much as possible.

Companies want to protect their high profits by keeping unpleasant secrets hidden from public view. It is the responsibility of journalists, particularly those not bound to corporate responsibilities, to expose these secrets to the public. Those willing to investigate face hardships and pressures to stop at every turn. Jane was supposed to positively reflect the beef industry in the lives of wholesome American wives in the show she directed, My American Wife. Whenever she tried to deviate from her assigned topic, she received notes and criticisms from her boss. The beef companies wanted her to make propaganda, not documentaries on interesting individuals facing hardships. She featured one family, the Martinez family, who emigrated from Mexico and were therefore non-white. Jane’s boss disapproved of the subject because it deviated from the propaganda they wanted to portray. Another shock to the beef companies came when Jane showed off recipes that featured other meats. Recipes involving pork and chicken were highly discouraged. Jane’s most daring show featured a lesbian, interracial, lesbian couple that completely undermined the original intentions of the show’s sponsors.