Midgar as a pizza.

[Dionysos]

Anyone familiar with FFVII should remember that Midgar's plate is compared to a pizza. The Midgar citizens suffering in the slums in the shadow of the plate are heard to joke that they are living "underneath the rotting pizza".

The metaphor makes sense. Midgar is round and divided into pizza slice-like sectors. Midgar's 'pizza' blocks out the sunlight for those living underneath. For them, life really does seem to be rotting around them, while the truly rotten people live atop the plate.

But did you know it goes a bit deeper than that?

Midgar's Mayor (who doesn't actually have much authority in real terms) is named Domino, after Domino's Pizza. The Deputy Mayor is known as Hart in the English translation, but in Japanese he is known as ハット / Hatto (which can be translated into 'hat' or 'hut'), after Pizza Hut (the Japanese for Pizza Hut is apparently ピザハット/ Pizahatto)...

Therefore, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are both references to dominant American pizza restaurant chains... The English translation just missed this particular joke.

The "rotting pizza" wasn't just a half-baked, throwaway line. They meant it.

I think this strengthens an already powerful metaphor. The plate of Midgar is a rotting pizza, suffocating the unfortunate cockroaches and undesirables who dare live underneath it, and yet the Mayor and Deputy Mayor (representing hugely successful restaurant chains) are essentially rotting along with the discarded pizza they delivered. Meanwhile, Shinra grins and collects the profits.


The whole Final Fantasy franchise is a stuffed crust of clever, subtle references. I find this one particularly fascinating. I'd overlooked it until recently.

 

[Dionysos]

Domino's Pizza itself is getting in on this.

https://www.facebook.com/DominosMY/photos/a.180244505442035/1889013484565120

https://twitter.com/x/status/1258017283298844672

A great way to make the most of a recent release.

 

[Miko]

A+ for all those cheesy puns.


Dominos is okay, but I'd prefer Pizza hut if I was going to order 'garbage' pizza. We always humorously referred to these kinds of places as 'garbage' pizza. It's not that it's particularly bad tasting but you're obviously not ordering from these places for quality food.

That said, is the reference in FF7 more of an insult to pizza chains like Dominos and Pizza Hut then? I can't say that the Dominos ad looks particularly delicious I think I'd rather make my own pizza.

I think the metaphor is pretty spot on like you said. I can't say I made the connection of the Mayor till I was older as well but I think it's pretty funny.




Speaking of 'garbage' food

 

[Dionysos]

A+ for all those cheesy puns.

Thank you.

Dominos is okay, but I'd prefer Pizza hut if I was going to order 'garbage' pizza. We always humorously referred to these kinds of places as 'garbage' pizza. It's not that it's particularly bad tasting but you're obviously not ordering from these places for quality food.

That said, is the reference in FF7 more of an insult to pizza chains like Dominos and Pizza Hut then? I can't say that the Dominos ad looks particularly delicious I think I'd rather make my own pizza.

I think the metaphor is pretty spot on like you said. I can't say I made the connection of the Mayor till I was older as well but I think it's pretty funny.

I'm not sure it was intended as a compliment. While Mayor Domino is himself secretly anti-Shinra, the rest of the metaphors appear to be very critical of the entire Midgar system. This is a game about corporate greed, pollution, and unfair practices. The big 'rotting pizza' is starving those who live underneath it of nourishing light, yet the promise of the tasty thing above them is enough to keep many people enthralled by the idea of what Shinra offers them, true or not.

Which makes it quite amusing that the company Domino's (at least their Malaysian marketing branch) have turned the metaphor in their favour and used it to promote their own business. That's the sort of move FFVII was quite critical of!


-

I came across something the other day that I feel belongs in this thread.

The FFVII Remake takes this metaphor into a very interesting direction concerning Jessie.

Spoiler: FFVII Remake light spoilers - just a topping of spoilers but the base is well-known to all

We all know that Jessie flirts with Cloud non-stop and also she likes offering pizza to her friends. We see her mother making pizza, so we do know that we should associate Jessie with pizza in a literal context.

But with Cloud she takes this a bit further. After she offers to pay Cloud ‘in full’ if he goes to her place later, when he goes there she tells him she makes great pizzas.

Then she begins to list some seemingly meaningless pizza ingredients: Marche, luche, black milly, and red shelly.

Cloud hasn’t heard of any of those ingredients and Jessie finds that cute.

Well… Oh my.

Someone has pointed out that those are not ingredients at all. They are fashionable designer clothes items.

Marche is Le Marche

Luche is Louche

Black Milly is Milly, which makes little black dresses

Red Shelly is Shelley K

Undoubtedly, food would not have been a concern.

Jessie is listing the clothes she might be wearing, essentially offering him a ‘slice’ of herself – to continue the pizza metaphor.

If that is correct, then that went completely over my head (just as it did with Cloud). I’m not well acquainted with the world of fashion, much less women’s fashion.

Midgar really is so pizza like that even the people living in it are turning themselves into mini-pizzas. Maybe soon everything will be pizza, just like how everything on our planet is secretly cake.