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Aly Badalamenti
UCWR 110, Quirk
04 October 2013
Analysis of MacLeans Surviving Whole Foods
Seriously, think about Heaven and then think about Whole Foods; they're
basically the same. Comedian Kelly MacLean comments on this very nature of
Whole Foods in Surviving Whole Foods, her satirical blog post for The Huffington
Post. Whole Foods Market has been around since the 1980s and has since then
expanded across the country, and even into the United Kingdom. Priding itself on
being a health food store, it sells only products that it deems acceptable within its
self-created quality standards. While all of this may certainly appear heavenly, one
may question this notion after reading about one of MacLeans most memorable
trips to her local Whole Foods Market. While Whole Foods may be healthy and
green, she feels the products and regimens that they push are often expensive and
not for everyone. Ultimately, she feels those who shop and work at Whole Foods
should not have an elitist attitude when they are no different than those who choose
to shop elsewhere. Using the classic elements of satire, defined as humor, irony,
sarcasm, exaggeration, and ridicule, MacLean is able to successfully express her
personal views on the store by using this writing technique.
One way that MacLean successfully expresses her point within her satire is
by creating a relatable, humorous persona for her reader. MacLean often writes
about her experience in a self-degrading nature, expressing the common social
insecurities that accompany health and beauty. One such instance is where she
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explains that she is not rich enough to have dietary restrictions. This point
humorously showcases that she is an average middle-class woman, as well the large
expense that is common of health problems and their products. She goes on to
cleverly point out that you dont meet poor people with special diet needs.
MacLean then recounts her visit to the scary beauty aisle that uses a machine to
tell you exactly how ugly you are. In actuality, the device calculates wrinkles,
sunspots, the size of pores, and other facial features, and compares them to other
people your age. MacLean interprets her results as being 78 percent ugly, again
comically relating the far-reaching insecurities about health and beauty. By
expressing how Whole Foods has brought her own insecurities to light in this
relatable and comedic way, MacLean is able to persuade her audience that Whole
Foods may not be the positive health advocate it claims to be.
In the same way, MacLean often uses crude humor and exaggeration through
sarcasm to create tone, emphasizing the negative aspects of the store and its
products. She begins her article in this way. Directly comparing Whole Foods to Las
Vegas, she writes, You go there to feel good but you leave broke, disoriented, and
with the newfound knowledge that you have a vaginal disease. While she is
truthfully expressing the expense, confusion, and knowledge of health disorders that
may be acquired by shopping at the store, doing so with crude humor effectively
gets the attention of her audience. She proceeds by describing the parking lot as
war; being smacked in the face by the pleasant smell of the store; and spotting
the Japanese rotten kombucha tea, which she claims roughly translates to I gizzed
in your tea. After discovering her glorious, blond porn mustache upon having her
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face analyzed, she contemplates ending it all and how she is dying to get out. A
plethora of examples of her crude humor and diction choices exist throughout the
article. These harshly detailed and somewhat exaggerated descriptions aid to her
abrasive tone, emphasizing the adverse effects of the store and eliciting an
appropriate emotional response from her reader.
MacLean constantly references the cost of products in Whole Foods with a
note of sarcasm. She says that the face cream to make her less ugly is only $108
which is a pretty good deal when you think about it. Her air of sarcasm implies the
direct contradiction that, in fact, it is not a good deal whatsoever. She stresses the
point that the store is capable of demeaning a person, sometimes to the point of
guilting them into purchasing expensive products that they truthfully do not need.
She later on encounters a man that invites her to join his juice cleanse. She says that
for $179.99 I can not-eat not-alonenot-gonna-happen. She questions whether
these costly health regimens are truthfully healthy at all in a sarcastic way, listing
falling asleep on the highway, fantasizing about eating a pigeon, and crapping her
pants as previous side effects of her last juice cleanse. By exaggerating these
negative side effects, she stresses the forceful stigma attached to such healthy
regimens. Mainly, she points out that these health products and regimens are not for
all people, and that not following them does not mean that you are unhealthy.
Her strongest point involves addressing the irony within the elitist attitudes
that accompany such products and regimens. She encounters multiple instances of
this attitude within costumers and store employees throughout her visit to Whole
Foods, and describes the true situational irony. When in the parking lot, MacLean
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watches a pregnant woman nearly get hit by a man driving an eco-friendly Prius.
After swerving around her and honking, MacLean spots the bumper sticker on his
car, which says Namaste. Derived from Sanskrit and translating to salutations to
you, MacLean shows the situational irony of the unkind greeting between the two
store customers. Later on, she asks a store employee for help finding whole wheat
bread. Just as she notices that his visor reads Namaste, he rudely replies by telling
her they keep the poison in aisle 7. This second unkind interaction furthers the
idea of the elitist attitude, as the employee feels that he is better than MacLean for
making the healthy choice in not eating whole wheat bread. This attitude makes
the fashionable appeals of Whole Foods feel quite negative and uninviting to those
that do not frequently shop there.
Overall, MacLean aims to express that one does not need to shop at Whole
Foods to be considered healthy or elite, and does so in an entertaining and
humorous way. Not blaming the store, this one instance stands to represent what
MacLean says she hates most about the rising American green culture. The
elements of satire allow her to identify and expound upon this flaw in human
interaction. Ultimately, MacLean reaches out to a broader audience through her use
of satire.