Review: Supersize Me
* * * 1/2 (out of 4)
June 27, 2004; Patriot Cinemas Nickelodeon #3
It was a documentary weekend, I guess. After walking out of Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling more than a little embarrassed for my country, I entered Supersize Me expecting something a little more lighthearted… which I got… kind of. True, the film festival behemoth took itself less seriously than Moore’s picture, but again I walked out with serious concerns for America’s place in the world today. Morgan Spurlock does a great job showing a problem common to many people today, but he does it without alienating or humiliating those people.
Worried because America has become the most obese nation on Earth, Morgan set a challenge for himself. He spent thirty eating nothing but McDonald’s food three times a day. He took this very seriously, establishing a set of guidelines to work from, including the rule that if anyone ever asked him to supersize his meal, he had to say yes. So off he went, getting over initial sickness after about a week, using a dream team of doctors and medical professionals to track his progress in various areas.
His results were downright shocking, but I’ll leave it to you to find out everything that happened. What’s more important is the point that he makes. Morgan followed this path for one month; there are people who eat at McDonald’s or similar fast-food joints once a day, every day. If he had these problems after a month, consider what might happen after a year, or two, or five. It’s a frightening idea, and there are people living this. More unnerving is the lack of responsibility taken by the establishment. McDonald’s was the company in question here, and despite nearly two dozen phone calls in which he left his contact information, Morgan did not once talk to an executive about what he had found. They barely acknowledged his presence.
The humor and humanity is what will get people to see this. Morgan’s situation is amusing from the start; it’s a wonder his girlfriend, a vegan chef, hung around at all during his experiment, and some of her comments are priceless. Morgan also introduces a number of people across the country for whom McDonald’s is a way of life, including one man who eats upwards of ten Big Macs a day. That the restaurant has developed a culture of its own only makes it more upsetting that they claim to have no social responsibility.
Morgan Spurlock is the reverse of Subway’s Jared, but deserves higher praise. What Subway fails to mention in most of their ads is how Jared walked 3 miles each way to get his daily sandwich; Morgan is entirely up front about everything that went into his McD’s month. Supersize Me is an excellently presented op-ed that may set off red flags with more people than we might expect. Hopefully those people will take the red flags seriously.
* * * 1/2 (out of 4)
June 27, 2004; Patriot Cinemas Nickelodeon #3
It was a documentary weekend, I guess. After walking out of Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling more than a little embarrassed for my country, I entered Supersize Me expecting something a little more lighthearted… which I got… kind of. True, the film festival behemoth took itself less seriously than Moore’s picture, but again I walked out with serious concerns for America’s place in the world today. Morgan Spurlock does a great job showing a problem common to many people today, but he does it without alienating or humiliating those people.
Worried because America has become the most obese nation on Earth, Morgan set a challenge for himself. He spent thirty eating nothing but McDonald’s food three times a day. He took this very seriously, establishing a set of guidelines to work from, including the rule that if anyone ever asked him to supersize his meal, he had to say yes. So off he went, getting over initial sickness after about a week, using a dream team of doctors and medical professionals to track his progress in various areas.
His results were downright shocking, but I’ll leave it to you to find out everything that happened. What’s more important is the point that he makes. Morgan followed this path for one month; there are people who eat at McDonald’s or similar fast-food joints once a day, every day. If he had these problems after a month, consider what might happen after a year, or two, or five. It’s a frightening idea, and there are people living this. More unnerving is the lack of responsibility taken by the establishment. McDonald’s was the company in question here, and despite nearly two dozen phone calls in which he left his contact information, Morgan did not once talk to an executive about what he had found. They barely acknowledged his presence.
The humor and humanity is what will get people to see this. Morgan’s situation is amusing from the start; it’s a wonder his girlfriend, a vegan chef, hung around at all during his experiment, and some of her comments are priceless. Morgan also introduces a number of people across the country for whom McDonald’s is a way of life, including one man who eats upwards of ten Big Macs a day. That the restaurant has developed a culture of its own only makes it more upsetting that they claim to have no social responsibility.
Morgan Spurlock is the reverse of Subway’s Jared, but deserves higher praise. What Subway fails to mention in most of their ads is how Jared walked 3 miles each way to get his daily sandwich; Morgan is entirely up front about everything that went into his McD’s month. Supersize Me is an excellently presented op-ed that may set off red flags with more people than we might expect. Hopefully those people will take the red flags seriously.
posted by Matt S. at
4:32 PM
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