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food is not good for you, so stop eating it.
Of course saying it is easier than doing it. As
documentarian Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" shows, America
has been programmed to eat fast food -- in particular, by uber company
McDonalds, which far surpasses just about everyone in sheer number of
franchises and advertising dollars. If tempting America through the idiot
tube wasn't bad enough, McDonalds and its corporate minions have begun to
invade the public schools. Is it too late for America's youth? It just
might be.
"Super Size Me" is a documentary by
Spurlock shot with digital video. In it, Spurlock undergoes a voluntary
experiment where he spends 30 days on nothing but McDonalds for his diet.
This means McDonalds in the morning, for lunch, and for dinner. And if any
of the sales clerks ask him if he wants his food "super sized",
he's obligated to say Yes (which he does, with some relish). If that
sounds like something that'll make you throw up, it's even worst for
Spurlock's vegan girlfriend, who confesses that since Spurlock has begun
his experiment, his, shall we say, prowess in the bedroom has dropped
dramatically.
Spurlock himself confesses that his experiment is an
extreme case -- after all, no one eats McDonalds every day for a whole
month, right? Maybe, and maybe not. After a couple of days on the diet,
Spurlock is seen enjoying the meal in his car, when he suddenly vomits out
the window. Later on, his body starts to fight back, and Spurlock's three
doctor advisors tell him, in no uncertain terms, that they fear for his
life if he doesn't go back to a normal diet. Spurlock battles on to the
full 30 days, including a moment where he wakes up in the middle of the
night with shortness of breath, and confesses to the camera as if he fears
he's going to die right then and there.
While Spurlock clearly is no fast food junkie to
start with, he does take a surprisingly balanced view of the fast food
culture. In his first few days, Spurlock devours his McDonalds with glee
and are wowed by the huge portions he gets. Even after days on the stuff,
he's still more than eager to down the fattening Big Macs and fries with
gusto. And who can blame him. McDonalds has spent decades and billions
perfecting their formula -- literally as well as figuratively. At this
point in their existence, McDonalds is a well-oiled machine. It knows how
to hide, how to evade, and it has the money to keep the status quo at the
status quo indefinitely. There is, after all, a reason McDonalds is the
King of the block.
To be honest, the conclusion of Spurlock's experiment
seems rather obvious. Luckily for viewers who could care less about the
"fast food is bad for you" argument, Spurlock fills his
documentary with more than just droll speeches by nutritionists and tort
lawyers hoping to make a couple of million off Ronald and company.
Spurlock spends the middle of the documentary traveling around the country
observing the habits of school children and school cafeterias. In one
telling sequence, we learn that first graders can't tell you who George
Washington is, but they can easily identify Ronald McDonald.
Besides his ever-present digital camera, Spurlock
spices up the visuals with spiffy animation and some funny anecdotes from
experts, including one man who talks about how heckling smokers has become
socially acceptable, but heckling an obese person has not. He makes a
valid point, I think, that smoking and obesity are both derived form
unhealthy addiction (one to tobacco, the other to food), and is, when you
look at it from an objective point of view, the same animal. So why is it
then acceptable to heckle and tell the smoker to just stop smoking, but
it's not the same to tell the obese person to stop stuffing food into
their mouth?
"Super Size Me" is worth a look, even if
you think you know everything there is to know about the obesity debate.
Spurlock, using himself as a guinea pig, makes some excellent points, all
of them backed up by hard data. Spurlock is no Michael Moore; although
it's readily obvious what the outcome of "Super Size Me" will
be, one never feels that there is an inordinate amount of sleight of hand
going by the filmmaker. To wit: if Spurlock wanted to hedge his bets, I
can think of at least two pieces of footage that he wouldn't have
included. The fact that he did only makes you respect his documentary
more.
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