Until now, I have avoided watching
Super Size Me because I thought
already knew the information that the film wanted to deliver. I assumed I
already knew the outcome of the story and in some aspect I did.
If the film had only focused on
Morgan Spurlock’s quest to only eat McDonald’s for a month, I do not think this
film would have been as influential. The filmmaker did a good job of combining
and contrasting Morgan’s challenge and mixing in interviews and facts from
other places. One of the most effective scenes was when Morgan visited an
elementary school in Illinois and spoke to a woman about the food the school was
providing. This scene was shocking. I could not believe the selection of foods
the kids were offered. Every day students had access to French fries, potato
chips, sugary drinks, and candy bars. The school officials said that they were
teaching student’s healthy eating habits, but obviously, it wasn’t helping.
When given the choice, young kids are always going to choose the sugary and
calorie filled option. I think that this part of the film was more effective
than any other the parts with Morgan eating McDonalds, because it showed how
even though those kids were not eating at fast food restaurants, the foods they
were getting in school were just as unhealthy.
One smart choice the filmmakers made I was having visit various doctor all throughout his McDonalds journey. If the film
had portrayed Morgan going through this challenge on his own, it would have
just showed him gaining weight, which is an obvious outcome of always eating
McDonald’s. But from the doctors visits we learn that fast food does more to
the body than cause weight gain. Morgan
learned that he was slowly becoming addicted to his fast food, his cholesterol
was skyrocketing, his liver was failing, he was losing energy in all parts of
his life, and many other negative things. This was one of the most influential
parts of this film. The filmmakers wanted to show that fast food does more than
makes you fat, it can negatively effect almost every part of your body.
Even
though I feel like I learned a lot from this film, I also feel slightly
manipulated but not in a bad way. The issue of healthy eating is so important
that I don’t mind feeling like this film did everything can could to prove
their point. With most activist films, the issue being discussed is so two
sided that they could probably make a film on the other side of the issue that
it just as convincing. But in the case of this film, it would be really hard to
make a film about how healthy it is to eat fast food everyday.
Great response! I agree with all your points and the one that stood out was the point where Morgan is going to the doctor and getting updates on how his body is reacting to the every day/every meal fast food. I think that if Morgan had not been going to the “Professional” for a correct overview of how his health was then the point of eating unhealthy fast food everyday would not have been as strong. This was a little manipulative but by the way it was presented with the interviews, doctors, and other facts made the persuasion more about informing rather than manipulative persuading.
ReplyDeleteI feel that just like you, many people do not watch this documentary because they feel they already know what it is about. It is pretty self explanatory with the fact that the title is “Supersize Me” and its about fast food, but the details in the film are what is informative. Just like you said, the obvious part of the film is eating fast food every day/every meal and how that will lead to being unhealthy. The bigger fact is that getting the details on what type of damage it is bringing to the body is the bigger and better issue to focus on.