>Pointing to his alcoholism to dismiss the health concerns, which are obviously true, seems very odd to me.
The very doctors talking to Spurlock in the documentary told him that what they saw of his liver should be impossible if he wasn't an alcoholic, thirty days of eating 5000 calories a day or not. It takes a significant amount of time to do that kind of damage to your liver.
Turns out he was an alcoholic.
SuperSize Me wasn't "about" "hey did you know if you eat a lot of fast food, it's bad for you?", the thesis of the production was that thing that America loves to ignore: A company wants you to buy more of their products and services, and will happily sell them and push them to you, no matter how much it hurts you.
"SuperSize me" was about how McDonalds had their cashiers push supersizing at every single purchase, as if it was Gamestop pushing their magazine, despite that empirically not being something the vast majority of purchases SHOULD do, because it's profitable.
Like christ folks, it's the damn title!
The "it made me unhealthy" portion of the movie was basically fraud though, and quickly called out as such. But it wasn't there to "prove" anything, but rather because American Documentaries from the period (and probably still now) view themselves first and foremost as "shock" entertainment, second as spectacle, and only have meaningful content if there's some spare room in the runtime. Documentaries "compete" with action movie schlock in the US
The very doctors talking to Spurlock in the documentary told him that what they saw of his liver should be impossible if he wasn't an alcoholic, thirty days of eating 5000 calories a day or not. It takes a significant amount of time to do that kind of damage to your liver.
Turns out he was an alcoholic.
SuperSize Me wasn't "about" "hey did you know if you eat a lot of fast food, it's bad for you?", the thesis of the production was that thing that America loves to ignore: A company wants you to buy more of their products and services, and will happily sell them and push them to you, no matter how much it hurts you.
"SuperSize me" was about how McDonalds had their cashiers push supersizing at every single purchase, as if it was Gamestop pushing their magazine, despite that empirically not being something the vast majority of purchases SHOULD do, because it's profitable.
Like christ folks, it's the damn title!
The "it made me unhealthy" portion of the movie was basically fraud though, and quickly called out as such. But it wasn't there to "prove" anything, but rather because American Documentaries from the period (and probably still now) view themselves first and foremost as "shock" entertainment, second as spectacle, and only have meaningful content if there's some spare room in the runtime. Documentaries "compete" with action movie schlock in the US