Hebdige Reading

I used the quote, “winning and shaping consent so that the power of the dominant classes appears both legitimate and natural,” from page 16 of the reading and placed the text over a picture of a McDonald’s restaurant sign. This quote refers to cultural hegemony, and I think fast food is a good example of dominance of the upper class (the corporation owners) manipulating the lower and working classes of people in order to benefit off of them. With fast food, customers are offered a large amount of food for not a lot of money. However the food is mostly unhealthy and bad for you. Though advertisements and commercials make it seem as though the purpose of the fast food chain restaurant is to make food available for those who would otherwise have trouble affording it, the corporation actually benefits because it makes billions of dollars a year. I understand cultural hegemony as the dominant bourgeois class spelling out its values in terms of working class values, making the end result seem normal and accessible to working class people (even though it’s not—mass-produced un-nutritious food is not natural), and I believe this is an example of that.