A lot of people have wondered how a brilliant film like Ratatouille could be denied a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Well, I’ve finally uncovered the conspiracy, and it involves food, obviously. See, Ratatouille celebrates great French cuisine. But apparently the Academy is in the pockets of the American fast food industry, because all five of the Best Picture contenders have some sort of connection to the greasy, fatty and popular foods that keep America overweight and complacent.

What, you don’t believe me? OK, well here’s the obvious ones: There Will Be Blood has a line about drinking milkshakes (the line is now such a popular catch phrase, I’m shocked McDonalds hasn’t yet given its customers a movie tie-in); Juno has a hamburger phone; No Country For Old Men has that slaughterhouse bolt pistol. Now here’s the less noticeable and the real stretch: Michael Clayton deals with a fictional company called U-North, which is pretty much supposed to be the real company Monsato, which got its start as the supplier of saccharin, caffeine and vanillin to Coca-Cola; and Atonement is the latest film to have a “small fry” actress nominated for an Oscar (yeah, that’s all I’ve got).

Could this be punishment for Disney’s dumping McDonalds as a tie-in partner a few years back? Or does it go along with Nikki Finke’s claim last summer that Ratatouille is about gourmet cooking and therefore not accessible to the American Heartland (certainly the box office gross and DVD sales contradict her)? Whatever the reason for Oscar celebrating fast food, it’s too bad it couldn’t have happened earlier enough to honor Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle in 2005 (I’m not the only one who enjoyed it more than Million Dollar Baby, right?).