ABSTRACT
The yellow smiley face that is Wal-Mart's corporate logo appears in Wal-Mart's commercials, careening through store aisles to alert potential shoppers about various products for which Wal-Mart's already low prices will be further "rolled back." As corporate logos go, this generic smiley face is not much of a match for McDonald's golden arches or Happy Meal-toting clown. But as a symbol of American consumerism and the particular form of contemporary capitalism on which it rests, Wal-Mart has displaced McDonald's as the company most closely associated with U.S. political-economic and cultural power.
