Super Size Me

Directed and Written by Morgan Spurlock

Starring Morgan Spurlock as himself

96 Minutes Runtime

Unrated

USA Release: May 7, 2004

Junk food junkies, prepare for a change of diet if you dare see this expose of the ugly side of happy meals.  Sacrificing his body for his art, aspiring documentary maker Morgan Spurlock has a hit on his hands with this experiment in fast food overkill.  He eats nothing but fast food throughout the entire movie and films the results in a graphic display of french fry dementia.  You may not eat another burger for months, not even a Big Kahuna burger.

The movie starts out with a reasoned approach to the question of fast food quality.  The director/writer/lead Spurlock recounts that most people are suspicious of fast food.  He also explores the fact that America is the most obese nation in the world and echoes a currently politically correct opinion that a good part of the blame might be apportioned to the fast food industry, who make it so easy to buy the institutional mix of sugar, fat and nutrient-sterile starch that they sell at every street corner and shopping mall in America. 

But, according to Spurlock, the creation of the food itself is not bad enough.  In addition to providing the food everywhere, the marketing gurus of the industry have devised ways of making us eat more.  They invented “supersizing,” that friendly invitation to have even more starch, fat and sugar at a trifling extra cost.  That fact that the extra carbs cost only a little more is not too amazing considering that the food itself is only a small part of the sales price to begin with.  The cost of the burger is mostly the cost of the building, the Disney-like play areas, the advertising, the packaging and the wonderful and inspiring toys given out with the food.  The food itself has been marginalized.

So Spurlock entered into the making of the movie with two goals in mind.  The first was to show the effects of a thirty-day diet of fast food on his body by using himself as the guinea pig.  The second was to vow to always super-size his meal whenever asked by his providers (he used only MacDonald’s for the movie—must have been their lucky day…).

Starting out scientifically enough, Spurlock enlists the services of a doctor of internal medicine, a heart doctor and a professional nutritionist.  He has thorough check-ups and consultations with all of these folks and we are apprised of his beginning overall physical condition, which is well above average.  He has very good cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body fat, sexual ability (according to those who know) and has a generally positive outlook on life.

The experiment is that he eats three meals a day of fast food, and only fast food.  In fact, he will eat only food provided by the fast food establishment of his choice (MacDonald’s).  He did not allow himself to eat any other food or beverage of any kind, provided by anybody else, and no vitamins or food supplements.  Furthermore, if the person taking his order at the window asks him if wants his meal supersized, his self-imposed rule is that he must accept.  That’s all there is—fast food only, three meals a day and super-size only when asked to do so by the establishment.

The meals start off likeably enough.  He is not used to fast food, but he adapts.  In time, he comes to rather like the fast food.  “Look forward” to it, in his words.  Herein lies another message of the movie—fast food is not only cheap and accessible, it is, in fact, addicting.  Although Spurlock doesn’t go into details, because he doesn’t have any, he opines that the components in fast food are calculated to make us want to have more.  Sort of like engineered cigarettes wherein varied nicotine levels slowly draw in the victims.

That point aside, there is no question about what happens to Spurlock in the course of his 30-day experiment.  The results are documented by his doctors in their offices with very accurate medical equipment at several times during the period of the film.  At one point his cardiologist advises him to stop the experiment, or at least to call him immediately if he experiences any one of several signs of heart distress.  His partner responds that life in bed with Spurlock is no longer a happy meal.

Shot in a funny hand-held style that does a great job of enhancing the trepidations of those interviewed; “Super-size Me” contains several revealing exchanges with both purveyors, and consumers, of fast food.  Most of the consumers, but not all, exhibit obesity.  And, undoubtedly, there are countless obese Americans who never touch fast food.  The lack of a statistical foundation for the implied conclusions, or the lack of logic in eating three fast food meals a day at the same chain, doesn’t seem to detract from the good time Spurlock has in sending his message.  The audience gets the idea.  And if the whole concept is unrealistically exaggerated, isn’t that what researchers do in labs anyway?  The fun is seeing Spurlock play the test mouse and the mad scientist at the same time.

A high point is Spurlock’s interviews with a high school cafeteria staff and students.  The cafeteria staff admits there is a lot of junk food available, but also maintains that the kids don’t eat it all the time.  They bring other food from home.  Interviews with the students at their lunch table show a hilarious slant on the staff’s statement.  Supposedly, at least some high school cafeterias have changed their laissez-faire approach to nutrition via capitalism as a result of the film; banning nutrient-deprived high-profit junk foods and replacing them with fruit vending machines.

Although MacDonald’s refused to be interviewed for the movie, Spurlock treats us to both sides of his phone conversations with the company which is cooperative at first but then circles the wagons in a blizzard of lame excuses.  According to the movie, they no longer take the initiative in offering super-sizing when a meal is offered, although the option is still available.  New salad options appear to buck up the healthy side of the menu, but actually have the same calorie count as a hamburger when ordered with dressing.

All-in-all a fine romp through the corporate wasteland of modern agri-business, and a coup by Spurlock.  If the movie’s medical conclusions are based on the ridiculous, maybe we need a ridiculous point of view to understand why the wealthiest nation in the world subsidizes big business to provide its citizens with daily doses of corn syrup.

In his prologue, Spurlock claims that it took him about a year after his thirty day junk food binge to regain his normal weight and medical characteristics.  That seems about right, considering he didn’t look too good at the end of the movie. The film, which cost $65,000 to make, had taken in $6.2 million as of the first half of June, 2004; a fact that probably helped his health considerably.  A must see for those anarchists with an appetite for the whacky.