Morgan Spurlock doesn't have a beef with McDonald's, no matter how much the famed golden arches get bent out of shape by his documentary, Super Size Me. He doesn't want to close the fast-food joints, or have his vegan chef girlfriend rewrite their menus. Spurlock simply wants the United States to give up its undisputed title as the fattest nation in the world.
What makes Ronald McDonald frown is how Spurlock makes his point in Super Size Me, a zippy experiment in gastro-masochism. For 30 days in 2003, Spurlock ate only at McDonald's restaurants nationwide; three meals a day, trying everything on the menu, and supersizing his order only when the server asked if he wanted to. "Every 8-year-old's dream," he calls the project on Day 1. By Day 30, it's his nightmare.
It's understandable that McDonald's executives are upset. Having the highest profile among fast-food establishments turns those arches into Spurlock's bull's-eye on a vast target of cultural antinutrition. When you're serving billions of processed meals, don't you want an order of fairness with that?
Pay attention and it's clear that Spurlock gives it to them. Of course, it's inevitable that consuming 5,000 fatty, sugary calories a day for a month will cause problems, no matter whose kitchen they come from. He's merely accelerating a slow, steady process, like boosting cancer cell growth rates in a laboratory to reach conclusions sooner.
Without Spurlock laying his health on the line - one of three doctors he constantly consults likens the binge to Nicolas Cage's alcoholic suicide in Leaving Las Vegas - Super Size Me wouldn't get the attention the topic deserves. It would be just another Dateline or 20/20 special on obesity that audiences ignore, sleep through or defensively deny. But networks wouldn't add those devilish Ronald McDonald portraits as chapter marks, or include the memorable image of Spurlock barfing after a meal; McDonald's buys a lot of TV ads.
Spurlock also emphasizes Americans' failure to exercise. Part of his experiment is avoiding exercise, even limiting his usual walking steps per day to the national average, well below what's needed for health. Fast-food isn't the only factor in our obesity epidemic. But the ease with which it can be obtained plays to our laziness. The calories that come with it stretch our belts and tax our bodies.
Spurlock interviews a trim man who has eaten more than 19,000 Big Macs in his life with no noticeable harm. He tries repeatedly to get McDonald's representatives to speak on camera about the subject but apparently corporate paranoia keeps them away. How much more fair can he be?
By focusing on Spurlock's unorthodox experiment, Samuel Goldwyn Films has a great way to sell a movie. It also gives McDonald's and other targets - a segment on school lunch programs is especially sharp - reason to denounce the movie. They can weather a low-profile consumer rant but Super Size Me has drawn enormous media attention.
The film could use an update to include McDonald's recent decision to eliminate supersize portions from its menus. It's a nice pre-emptive strike before the movie opens nationwide, but Spurlock would counter with the fact that he ate only nine supersize meals during the month.
Besides corporate responsibility, Spurlock also chides people who shirk their personal responsibility to stay healthy. The movie was inspired by a lawsuit filed by two overweight women who claimed McDonald's caused their condition. The film's distaste for that action is clear when the women's attorney shrugs off noble causes and focuses instead on the money to be gained. The movie also includes fast-food poster boy Jared Fogle, who lost more than 200 pounds subsisting on Subway sandwiches. It does not attack Fogle's method, but focuses on people who hope the same oddball diet plan will work for them.
Like Michael Moore, Spurlock is better at raising questions than answering them. But in a world where answers are constantly changing, making the public seriously consider those questions may be the best we can expect from muckrakers today. Films can make us aware but we must make ourselves informed. Super Size Me has more than the daily adult requirement of nutrition information, if we put down those Big Gulps long enough to notice.
Super Size Me
Grade: A
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Cast: Morgan Spurlock
Writer: Morgan Spurlock
Rating: Not rated; some profanity, gross-out images
