A film review by Craig J. Koban |
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SUPER SIZE ME
2004, no MPAA rating, 98 mins. A documentary written and directed by Morgan Spurlock |
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It’s no secret at all that obesity is becoming a National health epidemic. The numbers are absolutely startling. Obesity is linked to a huge series of other health related risks, such as Coronary Heart Disease, hypertension, and diabetes, just to name a few.
I think that this is one of
the reasons that I chose to lose weight shortly after I completed high school.
I clocked in at nearly 300 pounds and my doctor told me that if I did not
shape up and make better personal choices, then things would only get worse.
Because I did not want to stay in with the other sixty per cent of North
Americans that are overweight, I decided to lose weight by making healthy
personal choices. It took a
few years, but I lost a good 80 pounds (a small amount of which I have gained
back, but most of it stayed off), but I did it by taking control of my life and
my choices. Centers for Disease Control are now stating that obesity is overtaking smoking as the number one preventable cause of death in North America. This is a big problem. This is what, to a small degree, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, SUPER SIZE ME, is about. A hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film details Spurlock’s widely publicized experiment: He stopped exercising and ate three meals a day at McDonald's. Moreover, when an associate from the fast food chain asked him at any time to “super size his portions,” he had to agree. He also had to have everything on the menu at least once during those thirty days. The result: Spurlock gets
fat and out of shape. Am I the only one with the good common sense to say…well,
duh!? It is Spurlock’s silly and inane experiment that is the
true problem with his documentary. Sure,
it’s quite entertaining at times and funny.
But it lacks a real probing into the answers to the national obesity
epidemic, and instead picks easy targets. Who
on this planet thinks that McDonald's or any other fast food chain is healthy
to eat at on a regular basis?
The documentary starts off modestly
and humorously, as Spurlock (a poor man’s Michael Moore) goes around the
country and interviews several people, doctors, diet experts, nutritionists, and
even some fast food-aholics (he interviews one man, amazingly, that eats roughly
three Big Macs a day and, surprisingly, looks relatively thin...reasons for this
are never explored). He even starts
off the film as a relatively trim and fit young man.
At 6'2” and 185 pounds, three sets of doctors basically define him to
be in “perfect health”. He gets
three opinions from three different specialists, I guess, to provide validity to
his pre-experiment health status. Why
he needed physicians to provide a diagnosis on his post-experiment status
is beyond me, as the outcome is painfully obvious and predictable.
Spurlock’s arguments come in the
form of corporate responsibility over personal responsibility, and I
think its here where he completely baffles me.
There is no doubt that there is overwhelming evidence to support that the
big corporations like McDonald's clearly target children in their advertising,
and the billions of dollars every year they spend in advertising can attest to
that. Just look at McD’s, for
example: they have playgrounds that are borderline mini-amusement parks, they
have Happy Meals with small toys inside, and even have colorful mascots.
In the film’s most hilarious (and scary moment), a kindergarten child
recognizes a picture Ronald McDonald and not one of Jesus!
Spurlock is a fairly entertaining
chap, and has a hip and funny approach to the material.
But what he lacks (that Michael Moore does not) is his ability to probe
the issues hard. I am sorry, but
his “experiment” does nothing in the way to tell me something that I
don’t already now: that eating fast food will make you fat!
He actually went from a perfectly healthy young man to one that gained 25
pounds, had a failing liver, and whose sex life is described by his girlfriend
to be shamefully “lacking”. More than anything, Spurlock comes across as an
obsessive voyeur who seems to clamor for more attention to himself than the
actual cause he is investigating. He
seems a bit unmoved by what he is doing to his body throughout much of the film,
and apparently does not concern himself with the concern of the loved ones
around him.
Really, what was the point of his
experiment, other to prove the inevitable?
His attention grabbing stunt, no doubt, gave his film a lot of instant
media attention. But it ultimately proves nothing more than any family doctor
could have told you in under ten seconds. If
you really think of it, Spurlock is the ultimate hypocrite:
He chastises McDonald’s and other fast food joints for not taking any
ethical and corporate responsibility when selling unhealthy food to people when
he, himself, is needlessly walking into the chains and stuffing himself
ridiculously and becoming unhealthy in the process.
This seems like a vain effort to sell a documentary.
What other hook would there be to see this?
Yes, there is a terrifying
psychological link between McDonald’s and the people who eat there.
Yes, they target youth in their advertising.
Yes, they target youth to hook them when they are young in hopes of
luring them in later when they are older. But,
c’mon, when does blaming corporate businesses end and blaming yourself? I never gained the impression in any way that Spurlock is
trying to find deeper and more concrete explanations as to why our society is
fat. I also found it personally
infuriating to see him interview countless overweight people followed by even more
footage grossly overweight people. The
answers that these people give to the questions of where they eat and how often
is not a surprise. Funny, when he
interviews “healthy” looking people who appear in great shape, the few of
them respond that they eat at fast food places regularly.
He does not seem interested in discerning the reasons as to how they,
miraculously, maintain their figures. Again...I ask...why?
SUPER SIZE ME is more of a gimmick and a
JACKASS-esque stunt then a serious exploration into obesity.
Sure, Spurlock tries to call corporate execs from McDonald’s, but his
documentary seems less interested in that then his own pathetic stunt.
Whereas Michael Moore would have run into a McDonald corporate office and
demanded answers, Spurlock essentially goes no further with his phone calls and
sticks with his experiment. Forget
that the stunt is completely irresponsible; the offensive part of the
documentary is how he fails to look at and investigate other important
associations. One would be
economics (clearly, lower class citizens look to the cheaper menus at these
establishments as options). Family
structure is another (with more two income households with mothers and fathers
that work around the clock, who has time to cook?).
What about cuts in Federal funding for health education (which also
forces some schools to sign contracts with soda manufacturers for the
much-needed cash). David Suzuki, in
a recent article, states that we are so fat now because of the way cities are
organized. After World War II the
proliferation of suburbs often led to increased walking distances to schools,
work, and so forth. Thus, we began
to drive more and, in the process, exercised less.
Spurlock addresses none of these
possible issues.
The most obvious association is,
of course, personal responsibility and choice. Many people foolishly sue McDonald’s for contributing to
their weight gain when they really should just look in the mirror and blame
themselves. Of course (as the film
wisely points out) health education is not what it used to be and physical
education programs are run a lower than required levels.
Seriously, though, do we need a high school health class to tell us not
to eat crappy food? Furthermore, when will parents come to the table and take
some personal responsibility for the garbage that their children ingest on a
daily basis? McDonald’s does
target youth in their advertising, but so does the Gap.
Do you feel like someone is pointing a gun to your head and forcing you
to go to the Gap for clothes? This
should not be any different for food. Of
course, the commercials are slick and hip, but are we really all mindless
zombies that can’t see something for what it really is:
In McDonald’s case – really crappy food.
SUPER SIZE ME is an innocuous failure of a
documentary. Light-hearted and
funny, it nevertheless goes into no serious direction at looking for real
answers to the problems of obesity. It
is, in itself, a slickly advertised stunt and offers no deep analysis or
answers. Funny, when I was on my
diet I actually ate at McDonald’s quite often, but I was careful and watched
precisely what I ate. It is
possible to eat healthy at McDonald’s, as long as you combine eating with
healthy living and steady exercise. I
think a more daring stunt would have been for Spurlock to eat nothing but the
healthy choices on the McDonald’s menu for thirty days and combine that
with exercise everyday. Wait, that
would not be daring enough, because you’d be able to maintain your weight and
health, and there would be no scathing documentary.
It’s just like one of the women he interviews says, “We have a choice
to eat either a Big Mac or a salad at McDonald’s, but no one ever chooses the
salad.” That
is the real problem. |
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