Warning - film-making can be bad for your health (Super Size Me (DVD))

Member Name: cswann

Product:	Super Size Me (DVD)
Date:	07/02/05 (230 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, for a documentary, Thought-provoking

Disadvantages: Not highly scientific, but it doesn't really pretend to be, You may or may not feel like eating a burger afterwards

Morgan Spurlock's documentary, or perhaps you'd call it a bit of journalism, has become .

He decides to eat all his meals at McDonalds for a whole month.
He travels around the US in order to do this, partly to see the different regions where obesity is a big problem, he chats to customers, people in the streets, he also gets to try different things on the menu, some special meals in certain states.
If the staff at McDonalds asked him if he wanted to “go supersize” the rule was he had to say yes. The portions are of course obscene.

He seems to manage to eat it all – in the interests of science.
He also seems to enjoy the eating – by and large, anyway. It appears to be a kind of addiction.

He’s in his early 30s, and a healthy specimen of mankind, by all accounts.
We see him going for examinations by a cardiologist, a GP and a gastroenterologist. He keeps seeing each of these experts during the month, so we get to see their growing concerns for his health. Also involved are a nutritionist and a personal trainer.

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex, features briefly in the movie – the fact that she is a vegan chef makes the whole experience all the more interesting. I can't help but wonder whether she really was as understanding as the movie makes out?
His libido was ruined, and she seems put out at that. Fair enough.

Spurlock himself admits he isn’t entirely against McDonalds – he hasn’t got a vendetta, exactly, he just seems to have a sense of fair play, and wants them to be more responsible.
Not just a journalist’s or a film-maker’s stunt.
But he did start out with the following view – just don’t make McDonald’s an important part of your diet. To put it simply.

The movie may have had an effect – since it came out have been newspaper adverts from McDonalds in the US countering the claims made in the movie. Here in England households are being bombarded by leaflets insisting how healthy and good McDonalds food is. The “Supersize” option has now disappeared, it is no longer available (a development that took place 6 weeks after the film’s premier at the Sundance Festival in Utah, and which is now commented upon at the end of the movie).

The movie won the documentary directing award at the Sundance 2004 festival, incidentally.

Spurlock started out working in TV, and worked as a presenter of a show called “I bet you will”, which featured items such as contestants eating live cockroaches. So he’s no stranger to the dare, but this time he’s mixed it with more of a serious journalistic side – it’s still an entertaining movie, at times.
He had the idea and the film was in production within 2 months – in itself, a great example to any independent film makers out there.
The style is very similar to many of the TV documentaries we see all the time, with varied locations and interviewees. One of my favourite scenes was where some young children are shown pictures of famous people, including Jesus, the President and Ronald McDonald – and generally speaking all get blank looks except for good old Ronald!

He claims he wants to “educate consumers to make healthy choices”, and I do hope the audiences who go to see the movie, or borrow the DVD, are the same people who tend to eat too much fast food – rather than it being Spurlock preaching to the converted.

There’s a website at www.supersizeme.com, which features campaign information, and a blog from Spurlock himself – which is currently full of talk of various award nominations and ceremonies.

Overall, it's a look at America’s eating habits, more than the fast food industry alone. In a country where there were over 400,000 deaths from obesity-related illnesses in 2003, and it looks set to increase. And we may think of the Americans as fatties, but the figure for Europe was 300,000 so we’re really not that far behind.


The DVD is available for £10.99 at amazon.co.uk

Summary: