{"id":4070,"date":"2009-03-28T18:55:43","date_gmt":"2009-03-29T02:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2009-04-05T22:39:59","modified_gmt":"2009-04-06T06:39:59","slug":"super-size-me-morgan-spurlock-2004-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4070","title":{"rendered":"Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"Morgan Spurlock\u2019s 2004 documentary Super Size Me<\/a><\/em> seems to fit right in with the present culture of American society today, and that is not a good thing.\u00a0 Spurlock\u2019s film follows the American pattern of following the irrelevant path, of not looking at the real problem, and of finding a scapegoat to blame for our shortcomings.<\/p>\n

The film takes a look at the obesity problem in America and zeroes in on one specific source, the overconsumption of fast food, particularly McDonald\u2019s.\u00a0 Spurlock uses himself as a guinea pig for a one month experiment where he will eat nothing but three meals a day of McDonald\u2019s food, super sizing his meal whenever they offer the option.\u00a0 He enlists three doctors to monitor his health during the experiment, going back at intervals to note his progress.\u00a0 During this experiment, the film takes a look at lunches served at schools, fast food advertising, health risks of obesity, and continues to reference a lawsuit brought forth by two girls who claim that McDonald\u2019s made them fat.<\/p>\n

Obesity is a serious problem in America and needs to be addressed, but all this film does is serve to enable those who want to blame someone else for their obesity instead of looking at the real problem: themselves.\u00a0 Spurlock\u2019s experiment is full of problems even before he takes his first bite of McDonald\u2019s.\u00a0 First, Spurlock, who exercises regularly and is in great shape at the beginning of the film, stops all exercise completely, even going to the point of reducing the number of steps he takes in each day as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Second, Spurlock purposely overate, finishing his meals whether he was hungry or not.\u00a0 This is evidenced by one scene in which Spurlock, clearly uncomfortable, continues eating in order to finish the meal, but ends up throwing up from overeating.<\/p>\n

Third, Spurlock, whose girlfriend is a vegan (which, according to Pulp Fiction, would pretty much make him a vegan) is clearly unaccustomed to this kind of food, experiencing an upset stomach after only a couple of McDonald\u2019s meals.\u00a0 Any one of these three things–sudden stop of exercise routine, overeating, sudden change in diet–would cause an individual\u2019s gain in weight and decline in health.\u00a0 When you put all three together, is it any wonder that Spurlock gained a lot of weight and his health declined.\u00a0 So, what did he prove? \u00a0That if you overeat, eat bad foods every meal of every day, and don\u2019t exercise at all you will become obese?\u00a0 Well, thank you Spurlock Holmes for solving that mystery!<\/p>\n

Obesity is a problem and one that is worthy of our attention, but all this documentary accomplished was to point the finger at McDonald\u2019s and the fast food industry; but how is it their fault?\u00a0 If I eat nothing but Hostess cupcakes and I get fat, is that Hostess\u2019s fault?\u00a0 Fast food is not supposed to be healthy.\u00a0 Neither are ice cream, candy bars or any of the other things we consider treats.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they\u2019re treats!\u00a0 The proper experiment would have been to carry on his normal routine, but to replace his meals with McDonald\u2019s food.\u00a0 Of course, the obvious reason he did not do this is because the results would not have been drastic enough and he needed drastic results to sell this film.\u00a0 The real point of the film should have been to take responsibility for your actions, something Americans seems to have a hard time doing these days.\u00a0 The film does try to push this message, but at the same time is telling you that it is the fault of the fast food companies.\u00a0 All this film accomplished is to provide Americans with another excuse, and has helped to ruin some great tasting food that was never meant to be good for you.\u00a0 The bland tasting McDonald\u2019s fries of today are not the same fries I grew up with, and all because a few people don\u2019t know how to exercise will power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. Morgan Spurlock\u2019s 2004 documentary Super Size Me seems to fit right in with the present culture of American society today, and that is not a good thing.\u00a0 Spurlock\u2019s film follows the American pattern of following the irrelevant path, of not looking at the real problem, and of finding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}