In today’s WSJ (likely $ required), there’s an article on how Taco Bell is trying to make a global push. In case anyone thinks that idiotic American culture is something the rest of the world as outgrown, the article begins with this image:
Earlier this month, a Taco Bell opened at a massive Dubai shopping mall. Patrons waited as long as four hours to buy beef gorditas and chicken chalupas at the chain’s first location in the Middle East.
In a feat of Baudrillardian self-cancellation, we learn that Taco Bell is a success precisely because it isn’t Mexican:
[David Novak, Yum’s chairman and chief executive] says the lack of authenticity in the chain’s Mexican cuisine is an advantage. “It owns its own category,” he says.
Still, it’s lack of Mexicosity isn’t enough for it to triumph in Mexico, as it turns out. The chain has made a run for the border only to find that “[t]he transactions in Mexico are not yet where we want them to be.”
(All this is just an excuse to link to that Achewood strip about Taco Bell’s secret menu.)