Rob Walker, writing in the New York Times Magazine, has the best "The Player pitch" I've seen for Super Size Me, calling it "Upton Sinclair meets Jackass." That's a perfect way of summarizing this social screed masquerading as a Stupid Human Trick. Morgan Spurlock's documentary about his attempt to vividly illustrate the perils of the stereotypical American way of life by eating nothing but McDonald's for a month is entertaining, horrifying, educational (assuming you haven't spent the past three years reading about this stuff the way I have), and nauseating (there were a couple of moments -- when Spurlock McPukes on Day 2 and when he shows very graphic stomach-stapling surgery -- when I thought Super Size Me might join Born on the Fourth of July as the only movie(s) to make me vomit, but I just squeezed my eyes shut and gritted through it).
The movie opens with a familiar sight, for me, anyway: a series of maps from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing the astoundingly rapid rise in obesity rates from 1985 to 2002. I've seen these maps presented -- or presented them myself -- to about a dozen different audiences now, and the reaction is always the same: shocked gasps. But in the theater, the audience laughed. Spurlock throws so much information at you that it can be hard to absorb it all. I was pleased that he not only tackled the eating side of obesity, but also the physical activity side, which is what I've been working on for the past few years (also, incidentally, the subject of my first official speaking engagement) -- in addition to his diet, he limits the number of steps he takes each day to the average for most Americans (which he, as a New Yorker, finds difficult; fortunately, the McDonald's near his apartment offers free delivery).
But he's got a sense of humor, too -- he scores one scene to Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls," he admits ruefully that he still loves the taste of McDonald's food, and he ends his experiment with a party for everyone who helped him along the way... at McDonald's, of course. (He'd need a sense of humor to deal with his girlfriend, who's one of those abrasive vegans who equates ham with heroin.) And there are some things that will amuse only a select audience, like when he slams Sodexho for providing crappy, unhealthy lunches to schools. He adds that Sodexho, the leading institutional food services company in the U.S., also supplies prisons, but he neglects to note that they run many government cafeterias... including the EPA's.
Spurlock seems less annoyingly self-promoting than Michael Moore, although Super Size Me is clearly inspired by Roger & Me. It's certainly an eye-opener (although I knew all the physical activity-related statistics, I didn't realize the extent to which kids are saturated with marketing, even in schools). The sad thing is, I walked out of the movie with a rare craving for McDonald's french fries (they looked so good, and he kept showing them!). Well, actually, I didn't really want to eat anything ever again -- but if I had, it would have been McDonald's french fries.
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