Irradiated Cereal and Abject Meat: Food as Satire and Warning in the Fallout Series

Abstract

This article is a close reading of food and beverages in Bethesda’s acclaimed post-apocalyptic science fiction video game series, Fallout. Through a discussion of the visual design, narrative positioning, and in-game function of food and beverage consumption, this article demonstrates how Fallout uses food to critique the unchecked technological development, rampant consumerism, and environmental devastation of post-war American atomic culture. Specifically, pre-packaged, pre-apocalypse food is presented as a focal point for satire, while the irradiated meat harvested from the mutated creatures that populate this post-apocalyptic world is presented as abject and ambiguous. In this sense, food in the Fallout series, as in much science fiction media, can reinforce or challenge ideologies, beliefs, and cultural norms by evoking real-world anxieties.