Super Size Me

Super Size Me is a 2004 documentary made by Morgan Spurlock, which follows him as he attempts an experiment to only eat McDonald's food for 30 straight days.

This experiment is used as a framing sequence as Morgan takes a cross-country look at the various facets of fast-food culture in the United States, including its effects on the human body over a sustained period of time, diehard fast-food fans, the use of processed food in the American public school system, and the impact of fast-food on American society and business.

The rules of Morgan's experiment are:

  1. For 30 days, he can't eat or drink anything that isn't on a McDonald's menu.
  2. He must eat three meals a day -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  3. He must consume everything on the menu at least once.
  4. If a cashier asks Morgan if he wants to "super size" his meal, he must agree.
  5. He will attempt to walk about as much as (or rather, not substantially more than) a typical U.S citizen, based on a suggested figure of 5,000 steps per day.
  6. He must consume everything on his plate.

As a result, Spurlock ends up suffering from various health problems, such as lethargy, depression, headaches, a reduced sex drive, heart palpitations and weight gain. However, Spurlock completes the experiment, and concludes that fast-food can have incredibly damaging effects on the human body if eaten consistently and constantly, as well as stating that the experiment was an extreme case.

The film was generally well-received, and earned over $11 million dollars (against a $65,000 budget) at the box office. Soon after this documentary was released, McDonald's stopped offering the super-size option for their meals and introduced a 'Go Fit!' meal. They claim that these changes were unrelated to the documentary's popularization.

Tropes used in Super Size Me include:
  • Big Eater: Shows the consequences of such.
  • Captain Obvious Aesop: Fast food is bad for your health. The film admits that everyone already knows that, but attempts to show that it's worse than you might think. The doctor at the beginning says that he expects Spurlock to gain some weight, but after a few weeks is begging him to stop the experiment for his own safety. The experiment as a whole just glues together a larger message about making smart food choices.
  • Deep-Fried Whatever: In an extra feature on the DVD release, Spurlock visits a fish and chip shop that also experiments with deep-frying candy bars. Since Morgan is still on his McDonald's-only diet while they visit, he defers to his cameraman.
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Watching this film can give you a serious craving for your favorite McDonald's menu item, though other parts of the film, such as Spurlock vomiting a Super-Sized meal out of his car door, might spoil your appetite.
  • Documentary of Lies: Even leaving aside the arguable point of it being McDonalds' fault that people choose to eat too much of their food and get fat, various doctors and nutritionists have pointed out that the weight gain and health effects Spurlock claims to have experienced are simply not possible from what and how much he was eating. The math just doesn't add up.
  • Fan Boy: Spurlock visits a Big Mac fanboy who achieved notoriety for eating at least one Big Mac a day for well over a decade. In contrast to the film's message, it shows that the fanboy is actually in perfect health.
  • Last Supper Steal: One segment is a painting that shows grotesque caricatures of various fast food mascots set up like "The Last Supper".
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: One of segments explained that McNuggets were originally made from chickens with larger-than-normal-breasts. This was demonstrated with an animated chicken with pendulous breasts so big that it had to walk with a cane.
  • Scenery Censor: At one point, Morgan is interviewing someone while they have lunch at McDonald's. A McDonald's bag is placed to conceal what the interviewee was eating: A McDonald's salad.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The "Blue Danube Waltz". During scenes of gastric bypass surgery.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Spurlock force-feeds himself a Super-Sized meal and almost immediately pukes it back up again.
    This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.