Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1478289
10 COMMERCIAL 8.9.2022 Godspeed your journey to the great playplace in the sky I can't remember the first time I entered a McDonald's. In the same way that I can't remember my first Lego set, or exactly when the jingle for Lube Mobile was burned into my subconscious, it exists as a cultural behemoth hazily rooted in the mythology of Australian childhood like hot fries sticking out of a crisp choc- olate sundae. On primary school playgrounds there was cultural capital in the ritual of it all, as we resented and revered the chil- dren who were granted regular passage, bearing the plastic talis- mans to show for it. As we grew older, wired afternoons after school, drunken evenings and all-nighters were powered by the comfort of a well-known mouth- ful, and the promise of fats fan- tastical and familiar. A bad habit after a long day over the years transforms into tradi- tion, of Friday night Happy Meals with their tissue-paper pocket of fries and injection-moulded treasures, the adored sticky sur- faces and sloppy ice-cream cake of a McDonald's PlayPlace party, or the highway rest areas and bypasses where one found res- pite, recognisable flavours, and two curved, blonde arches like a beacon guiding you to safety no matter how far from home one strayed. My own childhood remains punctuated by these visits, the McDonald's outing a necessity on the first evening of my and my sibling's fortnightly visits to our grand-parents, their re- luctant two plain hamburgers and a shared black coffee an endured kindness that enabled our longing for food that tasted like we imagined love felt. We stood on our toes to see above the counter, deliberating be- tween indulging our craving of crisp, cadmium-yellow Chicken McNuggets or the coalition of a Cheeseburger's plastic cheese, single pickle and modest ketch- up smear, a union as perfect as if it were sanctioned under the eyes of God himself. As we grew older and our tastes matured, it's as if the brand reflected this back to us. e iri- descent cheese betwixt the hilled bosom of bread still sat centre stage, but they were now flanked by a range of health-conscious options. e introduction of a salad range turned the first sod of topsoil onto what would even- tually be buried by the success of McCafés, their IKEA-accent, exposed-beam chic and carefree, casual ads sheltering you from the incandescent glow of your burger-shaped reality: the size of your fist and with enough calo- ries to last you 27 hours. And yet as our lives shifted and the company changed, there re- mained one constant, a figure around which the McUniverse would continue to spin. From his humble beginning in 1963, Ronald McDonald ascended to a throne no-one believed possi- ble, first mate and figurehead of a ship traversing global waters with unsinkable aplomb, jug- gling his roles as chief happiness officer of a multinational, magi- cal patriarch of McDonaldsland, and a friend to anyone in need of a sandwich and a smile. I remember several of Ronald's incarnations fondly, in particular the grinning magician of Satur- day morning cartoon advertise- ments. As I grew up glued to the children's TV shows my grand- parents had fastidiously taped since my birth, I got to experi- ence almost a decade of Ron- ald's on-screen life compressed into single weekends away; ev- er-changing and yet always the same. So it came out of the lustrous blue when, in December of 2017, McDonald's announced that Ronald was being retired for good. e decision circled quickly, spelling the end of more than 50 years of magic as clowns around the world were told they had mere months to hand in their uniforms. Maybe history caught up with him, a legacy hire from the age of company men and careers embarked upon for life, maybe you just sell enough hamburgers and all you can smell is the bullshit. Except, Ronald was never real. Despite being one of the most recognised mascots, if not fig- ures, in the world, Ronald Mc- Donald has only ever been a fictional mouthpiece. A glob- al ensemble of masked men brought this figment of a Merry Andrew to life. Once stripped of the plug in a carefully construct- ed facade, he could only leak hot air; no more human than the likes of KFC's Colonel, Uncle Ben, or Tony Abbott. And yet Ronald's retirement didn't occur in a vacuum. For a company whose every PR move is focus-grouped to the inch, and whose kitchens are de- signed to the millimetre, to bury a body with shoes as big as his had to have been a strategic de- cision years in the making. e age of Ronald McDonald could be considered capitalism's gold- en era, so what does his disap- pearance mean for not only Mc- Donald's, but brands around the world? Where can we go from here? We're quick to point a finger at a moment in fast food where everything changed, but the re- ality is that for a company that banks on consistency, McDon- ald's' success is found in its abil- ity to constantly change. From the A/B testing in 1962 of a pes- catarian option to attract Cin- cinnati customers during Lent that led to the Filet-O-Fish, to the trial and success of McCafé in an early- Mary-Angie Salvá-Ramírez writes that the 'renowned golden arches of McDonald's symbol- ize a corporation that achieves uniformity and allegiance to an operating regimen without sac- rificing the strengths of Ameri- can individualism and diversity' . eir most successful slogan, 'I'm lovin' it' , speaks to this, in- voking the simultaneously in- dividual and universal emotion of love and tying it directly to us as the subject. Salvá-Ramírez remarks on this sleight of hand, noting that 'McDonald's manag- es to mix conformity with crea- tivity' . Like casting a spell, Mc- Donald's retains an international veneer of uniformity—if we are all lovin' it, there must be a co- herent it for us to love. is narrative weaving became the primary role of Ronald, a clown fundamentally created to sell junk food to children and going on to break down the line between fiction and fact, his painted face promising to bypass the uncanny valley entirely. Not alone in his task, he was joined by a cast including fan favourites Grimace, e Hamburglar, and Birdie the Early Bird, but also e Happy Meal Gang, Mayor McCheese, Fry Kids, e Pro- fessor, Vulture and a character literally named 'Iam Hungry' . For nearly 40 years this cast padded out McDonald's' worldwide ad campaigns, most famously in the fictional utopia McDonaldsland, and yet no-one quite worked magic like the king clown him- self. Unlike the denizens of greater McDonalds-land, and indeed the messy world of food mas- cots at large, Ronald's position as salesperson, clown and (de- batably) man, placed him in a league of his own. When Ruth Shalit talked to Anh Nguyen of General Mills about the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, he revealed 'he's not a salesman who tries to sell you the product. He's more like your best friend. A friend who interacts with you to try the product.' But with Ronald also holding a position of corporate authority, we are expected not only to know and love him, but also to trust him. It's in this half- way state, simultaneously not human but more than just a cor- porate cipher that Ronald's true power is recognised. While talking to these bizarre PR hacks, Shalit finally manages to track down someone who had once worked on Ronald's portfo- lio, who I'll remind you is talking about a fictional character. She writes: I asked the spokesman if he could at least describe to me what he considered to be Ron- ald's true nature. 'We're on back- ground, right?' he said. 'Because I'd be more comfortable doing this on a background basis.' When I assured him we were, there was a long pause. 'OK,' the spokesman finally said, his voice dropping to a whisper. 'He is kids' fun magical friend.' And yet this not so secret incli- nation hides the harsher reality, that his role is as much one of missionary as it is companion to the unwashed masses, spreading the good imperial values of clean eating and clean living in the name of America. McDonald's serves as a far more successful export than pure politics, going so far as to outnumber patrons to Lenin's tomb upon first open- ing in Moscow, and now drawing in customers in over 120 coun- tries. What we might consider as the background radiation of our modern lives—those golden arches a fixture perhaps of our work lunches, road trips and re- grettable late night-decisions— has become positioned as a sa- cred ritual around the world. Anthropologist Conrad P. Kot- tak wrote in the 1970s of the 'temporary subordination of individual differences' that oc- curred in the fast-growing res- taurant chain, breaking ground alongside council chambers, courthouses and churches across American heartlands. 'By eating at McDonald's' he writes, 'not only do we communicate that we are hungry, enjoy hamburgers, and have inexpensive tastes but