Normally, when visitors enter Paris' Louvre, unquestionably the finest museum in the world, they are greeted with the awe-inspiring sculpture from antiquity...Nike, or the Winged Victory of Samothrace
Every year, 8 million people enter the Louvre and are floored by this...
The Winged Victory at the Louvre is not a replica, it is the original 3rd Centurey BCE sculpture from Greece, carved and erected at the Monument of Zeus around 203 BCE. The work was commissioned by the Macedonian King Demetrius I Poliorcetes to venerate the Battle of Cos, where the Macedonians defended Rhodes against the onslaught of King Ptolemy II of Egypt: Once again ensuring that the light of Western Civilization, of free men and free minds, was preserved for another generation against barbarism and lords, and the rule of might.
That light just got a bit dimmer.
Now, the eight million yearly visitors to the Louvre will not purchase their tickets and be awed by the 11 foot, 3/4 ton slab of ornate marble. Instead, visitors will pay their Euros, eagerly queue up, finally make their way through the doors, into the antechamber, and be greeted by this....
Over 8 billion served
That's right. France's 1,135th McDonald's franchise will be an open air eatery at the Louvre ticketing gate. As the London Telegraph reports
The fast-food joint will be installed next to the site of a planned new ticketing area, meaning that soon the first sight the Louvre's 8 million annual visitors will encounter won't be the "Winged Victory of Samothrace" but the Golden Arches of Oak Brook, Ill.
McDonald's claims that their tasteless, bland soy-burgers, transfat-laden fries, and its supersized mentality are not at all discordant with the Louvre, the home of the world's greatest masterpieces. Rather, as the corporate monolith states,
[McDonald's] has taken the utmost care in ensuring the quality of the project, both in culinary and esthetic terms.
Ronald was right about one thing. I deserve a break today. This is a horrific blasphemy to art, to food, to culture and to our sensibilities -not as consumers, but as thinking, emotive, sapient human beings who can recognize aesthetics and can damn sure recognize when we're being shit on by another greedy corporate slavemaster selling us a bill of goods. And, while I'm at it, fuck the Louvre management for even considering this proposal, much less approving it, and the City of Paris for approving the construction, and the entire goddamned country. If this is how France serves as steward over our intellectual and artistic patrimony, then they are no longer worthy...it's time for some foster parents to the world's antitiquities.
Seriously, fuck you, McDonalds.
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