[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Super Size Me guy does TV

Tue Jun 14 23:25:00 PDT 2005

>
>
>Dude, Where's My Country?
>
>     In the wake of Super Size Me, director Morgan
>     Spurlock tackles a range of American woes
>
>by Joy Press
>June 10th, 2005 3:34 PM
><http://villagevoice.com/screens/0524,tv1,64886,28.html>
>
>30 Days
>Wednesdays at 10 on F/X, starting June 15
>
>Just a year ago, Morgan Spurlock showed America what a
>regurgitated Big Mac looks like in Super Size Me. Not
>only did this debut film become the fourth-highest-
>grossing documentary ever, but Spurlock's merry Mac
>attack apparently shamed McDonald's into discontinuing
>the supersize mode entirely. He bounded onto the screen
>like a skinnier, younger, less abrasive Michael Moore. A
>populist from the heartland-West Virginia, actually-
>Spurlock talks the language of regular folk, but he also
>appeals to the boho crowd: As he points out repeatedly
>in Super Size Me, his girlfriend, Alex, is a vegan chef.
>Leaving behind intellectual analysis (the kind of thing
>that irritates ordinary Americans), Spurlock laid out
>his case without insulting anyone-except the fast-food
>conglomerates-in an entertaining, personal way that
>flirted heavily with elements of reality TV.
>
>30 Days, a six-part television sequel to Super Size Me,
>warps the line between documentary and reality TV even
>further as it weaves through American culture. Each
>episode stages an everydude's-eye view of topics ranging
>from tabloid fodder (binge drinking and anti-aging
>techniques) to the more provocative (Islam and
>homosexuality). In the riveting first episode, Spurlock
>and girlfriend Alex take a vacation in other people's
>misery, literally, by spending a month surviving on
>minimum wage. It feels like a retort to The Simple Life.
>Instead of forcing Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie to
>adjust to the limits and deprivations of working people,
>the producers of that show encouraged them to wreak
>havoc on their hosts' carefully budgeted lives and
>wrinkle their perky noses at the icky things folks do to
>get by. Whereas Morgan and Alex approach their task
>earnestly, only to be crushed by the enormity of it all.
>With no savings, they can't afford a deposit on a decent
>apartment and end up in an ant-infested place over a
>former crack den.
>
>"Home sweet hovel," Alex mutters after a day busing
>tables at a coffee shop where nobody tips. Having walked
>home in order to save on bus fare, our frail vegan chef
>settles down to a nightly dinner of canned beans and
>crackers she's stolen from work. Morgan rises before
>dawn to get to construction jobs where the take-home pay
>is $44 for 11 hours of exertion. He can pass for a good
>old boy thanks to his trucker's mustache and down-home
>drawl, but really he's so unaccustomed to physical labor
>that he injures himself. And because the pair has no
>health insurance in this painfully realistic scenario,
>the medical bills threaten to capsize their fragile
>budget.
>
>As in Super Size Me, Spurlock threads wisps of data
>through the narrative in an unobtrusive but effective
>way. For instance, the statistic that couples who make
>less than $25,000 a year are more likely to get divorced
>plays out before us, as Morgan and Alex struggle to make
>time for pleasure in their exhausting lives. These young
>liberals theoretically live consciously back in
>Manhattan-making careful decisions about what foods they
>put into their bodies, for instance-but their relative
>prosperity insulated them from more basic worries. Now
>they have to be excruciatingly aware of every move they
>make. Can Morgan afford to sacrifice a day's work to
>stand in line at the free clinic? Should they splurge on
>a birthday dinner for Alex? They eventually decide to
>celebrate the occasion in the cheapest manner possible,
>only to have their budget destroyed when a bus
>cancellation forces them to take a cab home.
>
>Maybe it's the starvation kicking in, but the duo wander
>through the whole episode in a daze. They are stunned
>and teary-eyed when they discover that the local church
>has a store where poor people can pick up donated
>furniture, clothes, and other essentials. "Every town in
>America should have a free store!" Spurlock proclaims,
>visibly moved-but not moved enough to place the concept
>in any political context or reference previous movements
>that supported the idea, like the Diggers in the '60s.
>The episode does a fine job of conveying the everyday
>reality of the working poor. But this is ultimately
>Social Justice Lite, lacking the kind of incisive
>analysis you'd get from Barbara Ehrenreich (who wrote
>about her own version of the living-on-minimum-wage
>challenge in Nickel and Dimed) and never daring to
>propose any kind of political initiative to redress the
>inequality. Presumably for fear of appearing . . . well,
>politicized.
>
>In the other five episodes, Spurlock restricts himself
>to voice-over commentary while we watch other wholesome
>American guys play lab rat on his behalf. There's the
>37-year-old dad who whacks out his body with a 30-day
>regime of steroids and anti-aging serums (with effects
>similar to those Spurlock suffered after a month on his
>McDonald's diet) and the devout Christian insurance
>salesman who agrees to live as a Muslim in a Detroit
>suburb. Wife Swap with an educational twist, 30 Days
>wants to change minds by exposing viewers to other
>perspectives-and judging by the average people on the
>street Spurlock quizzes about Islam, there are an awful
>lot of couch potatoes in need of serious schooling.
>
>It would be easy enough to accuse Spurlock of blatantly
>duplicating the career moves of Michael Moore, who
>followed the breakout success of Roger and Me with the
>series TV Nation and The Awful Truth. But the funny
>thing is that Spurlock was a reality TV pioneer, working
>at the scummier end of the spectrum. In 2000, he created
>an Internet show called I Bet You Will that was picked
>up by MTV. A predecessor to Fear Factor and Jackass, it
>dared people to eat disgusting things or humiliate
>themselves for small wads of cash. Just one example of
>the things people will do to make a living.
>
>_______________________________________________________
>
>portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
>discussion and debate service of the Committees of
>Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
>provide varied material of interest to people on the
>left.
>
>For answers to frequently asked questions:
><http://www.portside.org/faq>
>
>To subscribe, unsubscribe or change settings:
><http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside>
>
>To submit material, paste into an email and send to:
><moderator at portside.org> (postings are moderated)
>
>For assistance with your account:
><support at portside.org>
>
>To search the portside archive:
><http://people-link5.inch.com/pipermail/portside/>


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand