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Super Size Me
(2004)
Dir: Morgan Spurlock
I haven’t eaten meat in seven years, but long before my foray into the vegetarian delights, I swore off McDonalds for life. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the actual food, or the creeping smell of death, grease and urinal cake that never failed to pour out of the establishment’s pick up window with my "meal" and change. To this day, each time I drive by the lovely arches of gold, I can’t figure out why in the hell people still eat there. I mean, obvious health issues aside, can’t those people smell? Once you get past the initial flare-up to dismiss Morgan Spurlock (producer/director, and self-proclaimed "guinea pig" of Super Size Me) as a complete and total jackass, you realize his destructive dietary behavior is for the greater good; an attempt to educate those who indulge in all things quick and fatty. The premise: Morgan eats McDonald’s for three "square" meals a day, everyday for 30 days, to see what will happen to his physical and mental health. The result is most poetically put by one of his Doctors, who, when Spurlock is about three-quarters of the way through his culinary adventure, suggests he should give up by asking quite simply, "have you seen the movie Leaving Las Vegas?" This lo-fi documentary is clever enough, and Morgan proves to be a witty and likeable guy, while presenting some interesting facts and statistics. Not to mention the random Joe Public shots of extreme obesity that were enough of a motivator for me to re-evaluate my addiction to candy. However, the most entertaining aspect of the film came during the credits, as I watched the nauseated expressions on the faces of the masses pouring out of the theatre, clearly questioning the day’s lunch choice. The most common complaint I’ve heard about Super Size Me is "who’s stupid enough to actually eat that shit everyday?" The answer: way too many American fat asses, who are too lazy to cook, and too stupid to care. I appreciate Morgan’s self-sacrificing attempt to shed some light on the health effects of eating pure lard, but I say let’s allow the Darwinian laws of the survival of the fittest come into play, and weed out some of society’s undesirables. I mean, we are facing a serious over-population problem, and if anyone is that careless or ignorant in regards to their own health, why should we, or the corporations making millions off of their indolence, care? Bring on the heart failure. I personally would have found Super Size Me much more entertaining if, instead of Morgan’s jump back into organic produce (with the approval of his vegan, chef girlfriend), he would have kept going with the grease binger. Then, with his liver hardening more triumphantly than his penis, he could have pathetically passed-on, while trying to do Elisabeth Shue. But this was a documentary, and Shue is probably really busy these days.
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