Supersize Me!
English, 96 mins
Directed by Morgan Spurlock
Produced by Hart Sharp

Morgan Spurlock’s Academy Award-nominated Supersize Me! demonstrates that junk food of the MacDonalds kind will cost us our health and sanity. But the film would have done well to go further and question consumerist economies, the manufacture of consent and the power of advertising

This Academy Award-nominated documentary joins the growing number of non-feature films that get commercial distribution and release in the US , a trend that can only be celebrated by filmmakers and audiences alike. Add DVD and other distribution channels and we are looking at even wider audiences and more exposure. More than anything else, these commercial releases affect the length of a film – Supersize Me! comes in at a hearty 96 minutes. The days of the 54-minute television slot restriction seem to be over and the supersized documentary film, too, has arrived.

Morgan Spurlock is a healthy man in the prime of his life – he is in his mid-30s, lives in New York city , has a comfortable career and a loving girlfriend. He goes to the gym, lives a life of carefully moderated pleasures, has the right set of liberal politics, and is an altogether responsible and concerned citizen of the globalised 21 st century. What bothers him is America 's growing obesity – he cannot understand how a nation can eat so badly at such great cost to its health and well-being and then end up looking so ugly. He sets out to prove that his countrymen's preferred foods will cost them not simply their good looks but their lives and sanity as well. To this end, he takes on the transnational symbol of culinary and political hegemony, MacDonalds, and films his encounters in the fast food nation.

Spurlock decides that he will eat only MacDonalds food three times a day for a month. He goes to two doctors who certify him in the pink of health and also warn him about the dangers that he faces if he decides to embark on his plan. Armed with humour and determination, Spurlock starts his journey into the brightly lit, cheerful world of fast food. He subsists on Big Macs, French fries and shakes, with generous additions of McMuffins and Cokes. He visits MacDonalds' ‘restaurants' all over the country and keeps a tally of which ones ask him if he wants his order “supersized,” which means that he can get much more food for little or no additional cost. (Outlets in Texas were the most diligent about offering to supersize, and Texas ranks second in the nation's obesity statistics).

At first, Spurlock finds the food hard to take – he feels stuffed and uncomfortable and throws up every now and then. As the month progresses, Spurlock becomes visibly larger, his doctors and trainers tell him that his heart and liver are under stress and that he needs to watch his diet. Spurlock tells us that he is beginning to crave the fatty, starchy offerings and says that he experiences mood swings and outbursts of anger at regular intervals, some of which we see. At the end of the month, Spurlock's liver is working overtime because of all the fat he has consumed and his cholesterol levels have gone through the roof.

The film also has interviews with physical trainers, doctors and nutritionists, all of whom speak out against fast and processed foods. Regular folk on the streets are asked about their eating habits and all of them confess to enjoying junk foods and taking time out to actually locate and consume them. Stepping further away from his own gastronomic pursuits, Spurlock also goes into school cafeterias and examines the lunchtime menus provided for students. He finds them similar in nutritional value to fast/junk foods in general, heavy on starch, fat and sugar. Students choose to eat mountains of French fries or pizzas instead of more balanced options. Some public schools cater more appropriate meals at no greater cost and find that their students are happier and calmer in the classroom. But this conscious option for better food is countered by the ease with which the public school system provides prepared foods for cafeterias.

Spurlock brings all these observations together and laments that, through both ignorance and choice, America is a nation of unhealthy eaters headed for disease and physical disorders. Fair enough. The evidence is on his side and some of the footage and interviews would be laughable, if they were not so shocking in their display of dedication to poor eating habits. Since the film was released, MacDonalds has withdrawn its supersize offers and made a public statement that Spurlock could have eaten better at their outlets had he chosen salads and fish instead.

However, the film is ultimately about Spurlock and his “courageous” decision to “endanger” his life and health to prove a point. He is unrelentingly narcissistic: from the shots in his doctor's office where he stands on the scales in semi-naked, male glory, to his teary girlfriend (a vegan chef) who urges him to stop killing himself, to the fact that he announces his diminishing sex drive with locker-room humour. Of course, it is shocking how much weight Spurlock gains and what happens to his liver, and what young people in the US choose to eat, and how MacDonalds fries do not decompose even after weeks and weeks. But that is scarcely enough.

For Spurlock, MacDonalds is an accidental enemy, rather than a specific transnational corporation that is targeted for more than merely providing bad food at cheap prices. Spurlock never goes beyond the food he eats and what it does to him. He ignores MacDonalds' hiring practices, what effect these sorts of franchises have on local economies, and their global agenda. Nor does he examine the phenomenon of supersizing – how can you get more for less? What are these economies of scale and what (or who) makes them possible? On the other hand, in his smugness, Spurlock does not mention the fact that cheap fast foods, however unhealthy, are sometimes the only foods that growing numbers of the poor and homeless in the US can afford. Even the cursory look at school lunches is inadequate. It remains on the level of demonstration rather than investigation. In fact, that is the problem with the film as a whole: Spurlock demonstrates that fast food is bad for you, but he will not ask questions about consumerist economies, or the manufacture of consent or the power of advertising. Spurlock eventually loses the weight that he gains, but we are no wiser about anything except his personal life and vanity.

Infochange News and Features, April 1, 2005