Golden Arches
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Golden Arches are the famous symbol of McDonald's, a fast-food hamburger chain based in Oak Brook, Illinois, USA. They were introduced in 1953, when Dick and Mac McDonald began franchising their company, as part of the standard building design: a pair of stylized arches, one at each side of what was then a walk-up hamburger stand. When viewed from an angle, the design was reminiscent of the letter M, and was incorporated into the company's logo. While McDonald's dropped the physical arches from nearly all of its restaurants in the 1960s, the Golden Arches have remained in the logo, and as a commonly understood term for the company.
They have also been seen more broadly as a symbol of capitalism or globalization, since they are one of the more prominent American corporations that have become global in their reach (along with Coca-Cola and Nike).
[edit] The Golden Arches theory
In his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman proposed The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, observing that no two countries with a McDonald's franchise had ever gone to war with one another, a version of the democratic peace theory. The theory was never true; For example the 1989 U.S. intervention in Panama (both countries with McDonalds). Shortly after the book was published, the NATO bombing of Serbia proved an exception to the theory, though in a later edition Friedman argued that this exception proved the rule: the war ended quickly, he argued, partly because the Serbian population did not want to lose their place in a global system "symbolised by McDonald's" (Friedman 2000: 252–253). It should be noted that Friedman framed this theory in terms of McDonald's Golden Arches "with tongue slightly in cheek" (Friedman 2005). Recently, Friedman has updated the theory with the Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention (Friedman 2005). In 2006 McDonalds hosting nations Israel and Lebanon fought a war [1] which could also be considered evidence against the Golden Arches theory (It is not clear whether Israel was attacking Lebanon or just Hezbollah, and if Hezbollah owned any McDonalds franchises).
[edit] References in Pop Culture
- In the Japanese anime series (and, to a lesser extent, other media) McDonald's is parodied in a trans-canon spoof called WcDonald's (which, with various spellings, is symbolized with a golden W).
- In the song "Neon" of a little-known metal band, The Kovenant, the lyrics include a mention of McDonald's golden arches:
Bastard proclamations of a dying nation
Social deconstruction through deceit and deception
Hit us with your pointing stick
Golden arches crucifix
We will never be like you
- In The Far Side, a cow wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming "The golden arches got me!"
- Coincidence: Thomas Friedman, who wrote a book about the Golden Arches Conflict Theory, has the same last name as Dean Friedman, a singer-songwriter who wrote a song called "McDonald's Girl".
The Golden Arches were used in an essay by St Mary's students Ben Gordon and Laila Farah
[edit] References
- Friedman, Thomas. (2000) The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York: Anchor Books.
- Friedman, Thomas. (2005) The Guardian, 21 April 2005.
