Spurlock uses a variety of strategies, especially visual ones, in order
to make his argument. What is his argument and what strategies did you
find most effective or striking? What strategies were ineffective in
persuading you?
due 2/1 as a response to the Course Blog
Spurlock really constructed this presentation of fast food detriments well. I can’t say that any of his strategies were ineffective. Though this could be a result of the topic, being the hazards of fast food, which are pretty evident to begin with. Saying that you can’t go wrong when you’re arguing against the harms of fattening food, it’s already a medical fact. Now, to argue for the effects of fast food would lead to an ineffective assertion. The strongest argument I saw in Spurlock’s documentary was the effects of fast food advertising on children. The argument here is against it, clearly illustrating the negativity behind encouraging such awful eating habits at a young age. Developing these tastes for such fatty foods is ultimately securing a bad habit which thus leads to other health complications. In particular though, the scene where several children were shown images of known people and figures. As a result these children knew exactly who Ronald McDonald was, yet failed to recognize the universal image of Jesus Christ. This is an obvious implication of advertisement. Perhaps Spurlock is saying that there are too many images supporting these fast food conglomerates, which thus encourages it’s products: artery-clogging, diabetes donating hamburger dishes.
ReplyDeleteAnother argument presented was the possibility of addiction for these foods. For this dispute, he was the prime example. He shared his first-hand experience of mood elevation due to McDonalds food. Before his meal he would be dull and depressed, rather than elevated and excited after he ate. A clear example of addiction. His body built a dependance for the junk and in turn paints an evident picture of addiction.
It was obvious that the main argument is that fast food (mainly McDonald’s although he does talk about other places) is addictive and is a major cause for the obesity crisis that America is facing. Honestly, the entire struggle that his body through was such a moving story. The moment where he is talking to the camera at two in the morning because his body is practically attacking him with night sweats and he is experiencing sleep apnea is such a compelling scene. His body is suffering entirely and at that point, he is definitely contemplating whether or not he should really keep going.
ReplyDeleteSomething else he used as a tactic as taking b-roll of obese and overweight walking. One of the opening images of the film is an expansive ass of someone sitting on a cooler. When he shows overweight children with their parents, it honestly just makes it worse. He just shows how (and even gives justification) to the idea that kids are becoming addicted to this type of food at a very young age. Seeing the generations that are all facing the same health issues, really shows how much of a problem it is. When they show the kids, it is absolutely heartbreaking. The images of the obese people (especially with family and friends) is just absolutely striking.
A tactic that I do not know if he was planning on using or not was the fact that doctors would refer to overweight and obese people as being ill. When he is talking about how awful his body feels, it opened my eyes to a different perspective. Obviously, overweight people are not healthy, but looking as obesity as being an illness was just an interesting take on it. That type of name makes it sound even worse than just “unhealthy” which I think is great.
There honestly was not any part of this documentary that was ineffective in my mind. I do not like McDonald’s in the first place (because of how terrible the food is) so that may have had some bearing in that regard. However, watching the film just added to my hatred and disgust for McDonald’s and fast food in general.
The visual strategies that Spurlock uses are very bright and very meaningful; if this is what I think it is, the use of cartoons which represented each of the stages he the film was broken up in to: the toxic, sue the bastards, the impact and then Nutrition; each of these had a cartoon representation, which was an oversized Ronald McDonald. I thought that this Documentary on ‘Supersize me’ was very different to what I have seen before, I had heard about it but I had never seen it; I could not believe that he was putting his body through so much pain just to prove a point. The point that I thought he was making while watching this, is that fast food is the reason for the size of people in the USA and all over the world and how this food is hurting our bodies.
ReplyDeleteI thought that it was really interesting with the different angles of the camera, it made you more engaged to what was going on in the movie, and how he was talking to you through the camera taking you step by step of what he is going through. I wasn’t nice to see him eat though, I am not a big fast food fan; however I will eat it but when the camera was up close and personal to his mouth and the food all I could see was a big greasy mess; this was a good thing for me because it was a big turn off of eating the food.
The best persuasion to not eat out is what the doctors where saying and the Physical therapy people. When professionals are telling you, you are really hurting your body then it is defiantly time to stop. You could see the results with his mood changes and how he slowed down; also the size he became in the space of 30day was ridiculous he had put on so much weight so fast it was so unhealthy.
I don’t think there was one thing from that show that persuaded me to eat fast food; it all was a very big turn off from start to finish. It makes me want to cook my food ever night and make healthy things, just because I want a healthy body. I do not want to fall in to the 1 in 3 of getting diabetes or get depression from the food I eat. The funnies part for me is when he was saying that he had a Mctummy ache and adding Mc to things to make it tie in with the whole McDonald thing.
Spurlock has overall made a very influential documentary on a rising issue in this country. His main argument is caused by two overweight teens that sue McDonald’s. They believe that they are the reason that they are obese. Which leads to the challenge of this documentary. Spurlock wants to know what the effects of eating McDonald’s for a month will be. Little did he know that the results were almost fatal.
ReplyDeleteSpurlock makes many visual strategies towards his argument. One of the major one’s that pulled me in were the artist’s pictures of the fast food industry during transitions in the movie. This was a great way to go from section to section, but they also conveyed a message. The picture that stood out to me the most was the one of a French fry in an ashtray as if it were a cigarette. This showed how deadly fast food really is. At some point in the documentary, they also established that obesity is slowly surpassing smoking as the leading cause of preventable death. To me, this is astonishing that something we need to live, is killing us as well. Another thing that stood out to me was just the knowledge that people have. The kids in school could easily name Wendy or Ronald McDonald, but they could not conjure up the name of our first president. This is obviously showing what we are putting emphasis on in our education systems. The adults also blew me away. The family standing in front of the white house could not say the Pledge of Allegiance, something emphasized and taught throughout everyone’s life, but she could simply sing the catchy jingle for the Big Mac with the greatest of ease.
After watching this documentary, it really does prove how corrupt America really is. We are truly disgusting people if our focus is money and not health. But my question is, how will any of us be able to spend money if we are all dead from clogged arteries and high blood pressure? I hope after the airing of this documentary, corporate America rethought many things.
I believe that the strategies that are most effective in the film ‘Supersize Me’ were the director’s use of camera angles and close-up shots. Since the film surrounded around diminishing the appeal of McDonald’s food, Spurlock effectively used close-up shots of people unattractively consuming McDonald’s food and close-ups of the unattractive bodies of overweight individuals. I think that Spurlock did a good job of using these camera shots as a way to display the repulsive view of McDonald’s food.
ReplyDeleteSpurlock also incorporated paintings and pictures of an ugly side of McDonalds which I found very interesting. Spurlock incorporated paintings of Ronald McDonald making him appear scary (like a killer clown) or as an obese character replacing Jesus in a mock picture of ‘the last supper’ throughout the film to display the unattractiveness of the McDonald’s brand.
Although a disgusting film all together, there were some strategies that I felt Spurlock used that were ineffective in persuading me to stop eating McDonald’s. Sometimes throughout the film Spurlock would use shots of the food that would make the food seem appealing, which is not what they wanted to accomplish with this film.
A close-up of a large Big Mac that looked like the actual advertised product was appealing to audience members, rather than unattractive. Some of the shots of the actual McDonald’s meals made viewers actually want to eat the food rather than stay away from it, despite its consequences. One meal can’t hurt, right?
The point of Spurlock’s experiment and his documentary were to prove something anyone with half a brain knew all along: eating fast food makes you fat. Specifically, a diet with regular meals of fast food is detrimental to health, as well as making one chubby. He also wanted to expose the fast food industry for their advertising tactics, lobbying, and overbearing monopoly on the food industry.
ReplyDeleteThe experiment itself was a great tactic to prove or disprove the claim that an all McDonalds diet was not healthy. Spurlock outlined the experiment with great detail, making sure statistics were being accounted for throughout the movie. He had his blood tested regularly, an official weigh in, and multiple visits to doctors who tested his cholesterol and other body levels. Because he had medical doctors backing him up, it was much harder and more idiotic to try to disprove his results in the experiment.
The interviews Spurlock had with random people off the street were also a striking persuasion technique. It proved that ordinary people do not know anything about nutrition or a proper diet. It also showed how the fast food industry has entered the brains of America through advertising. People, especially children, knew way too much about fast food, and not enough about health.
The little animations and humor Spurlock intertwined used to show statistics really grabbed my attention. One can just name off a bunch of statistics, but when they add flashy animations to accompany the statistic it makes the statistic more striking and memorable.
Overall I think Spurlock accomplished his goals of completing the experiment, putting more responsibility on the fast food companies, and putting more responsibility on the American people who made them selves fat. If there was one thing that I found effective, but did not want to see, was Spurlock vomiting the McDonalds. We get it, you vomited, but do you have to zoom in on the partially digested super sized meal? It's just disgusting and not really necessary.
I'm with you on the vomit scene. We all got the picture without getting that particular picture.
DeleteThe first thing I want to say about this documentary is that the fact that he had a primarily vegan diet before the experiment has always bothered me. Because of this I always have thought that this experiment is a little bit...off. Being a primary vegan eater before the documentary makes me feel that the effects of his eating were expected as he never eats this stuff. With this being said the documentary may have been trumped up a little bit, which actually makes his changes in his body and overall health the least compelling piece of evidence given.
ReplyDeleteEven though I find the overall premise of Spurlock's weight gain to be skeptical I do believe there are very effective strategies in the film to compel the viewers into thinking more seriously about his message. One thing that always gets me on the news or in this case the film is the constant close-ups of morbidly obese Americans. This tactic is very effective in for me because I always pity that a person could let themselves slip that far. This shot always makes me feel sad for these people and at the same time disgusted, not from the actual weight but the obvious lack of self control that some people have in the world. I'm not trying to pick on overweight people, but there always is some way to avoid extreme obesity.
The one part of the documentary I really have always liked is the replacement of famous paintings with fast food characters. All of those paintings are great and make me feel a sense of a takeover by these characters. First they have taken over the masses of people in this country and in these paintings the character is usually depicted in some way of dominating and taking over the paintings. The original paintings are good also, especially the one of the child Ronald McDonald...it is such a creepy representation of him and makes me feel an almost evil intent in this painting.
Very good point about the implications of Spurlock's veganism. I don't think he was really a vegan, but it's clear that his girlfriend was cooking vegan food at home, so maybe 30-40% of his diet was vegan? I agree that this probably meant that his McDiet had a bigger impact on him than on others.
DeleteHis biggest argument is that America's have become the fattest nation in the world and he claims that fast food is playing a major role in that. He uses several different techniques to drive his point home. There are countless shots of overweight people, the camera even makes a point to focus the camera on the larger people. He also uses cartoons and jokes to help make people laugh and entertain. I think he does this so people don't consider suicide if it was just constant shots of obese people and a guy eating fast food. Without his jokes and funny little cartoons the whole documentary would be greasy burgers and obese people. I think the sarcastic way he commented on McDonalds and America's culture keeps the viewer from getting too down. Another visual that stuck out was how they made sure the viewer got a good look at the vomit when the food got him sick. I'm not sure if that was to help drive home the fact that the food was bad for you or just because it was gross, but it was disgusting.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I didn't like was the fact that he ate a healthy diet and so he wasn't prepared at all to take on the McDonalds diet. I think it weakens his point because he got so sick because it was such a big shock to him.
Also, there is a guy who says that eating out is the only difference between now and 40 years ago and that's why it's their fault for making Americans fat. But there are a lot of other factors. People watch more t.v. and play more video games, life goes at a faster pace so people just don't have as much time to make sure they are eating healthy food as well as other factors that make it so the fast food companies aren't only to blame. Plus, people could change their diets, they just choose not to.
You're right--fast food is certainly not the only change to Americans' lifestyles.
DeleteSpurlock uses many different strategies through "Supersize Me" to make his point to his viewers. Some of these strategies made his argument stronger and more convincing and some did the exact opposite. Some of the strategies throughout the film that convinced me of Spurlock's point that large amounts of fast food can be seriously harmful were his use of art, the closeups of him eating the food and describing his feelings towards it that day, and his obvious weight gain and health decline monitoring.
ReplyDeleteSpurlock only briefly spoke with the artist of many of the paintings he flashes to during his movie, but the artist said the he painted the world the way he saw it; full of advertisements and large impersonal and greedy companies. This artists paintings were of common advertising figures like Ronald McDonald and the Trix bunny, however he painted them in a much more negative light than they are usually portrayed. These evil images were supposed to show the negative effects that these "positive" companies really have. I enjoyed that these paintings were used throughout the film, because that reoccurring message was very powerful.
Another strategy that Spurlock uses to convince his viewers is disgust. When the camera shows him vomiting up his McDonald's and he is only on his third day, it is hard not to become sick as an audience member. It is also easy to see how poor the quality of this food is throughout the film. Everything Spurlock ate was much grayer than it is in the commercials. Also, when he found a long hair in his yogurt parfait and continuously showed the restaurant workers sloppy behaviors it was hard to want to eat anything that was being shown.
The third strategy that Spurlock used which I found to be convincing was his visits to his three doctors and obvious weight gain throughout the movie. It was interesting to see how quickly the food and lack of exercise took an effect on him. Also, it was interesting to see how shocked his doctors were about how badly the food had effect him and how serious his diet had become.
I found the movie to be very convincing overall, mainly because most of the strategies that Spurlock used were very effective. One of the things in the movie that really did not convince me of Spurlock's point was when he spoke with the man who eats two big macs a day. That man was not only skinny, but also seemed to not have any serious health problems. How can the food be so bad if that man was still doing just fine? While I found that this and other smaller parts of the movie took away from Spurlock's strategy, I was still very convinced.
James roller
ReplyDeleteMorgan used many techniques in order to convey his message, including, camera angles, satirical art, and contrasting colors. What I found most effective was how relatable Morgan Spurlock the character was.
Morgan Spurlock is very average white man. Not outrageously attractive, fits into the average weight for his size, Lives in a small apartment just like most people in Manhattan, and doesn’t seem to be an expert in nutrition. The man honestly seems incredibly boring. The only thing somewhat unusual about him is his vegan girlfriend, but even thought a vegan chef girlfriend is slightly unusual she actually makes him more relatable. Throughout the movie all she does is bitch and moan about his new McDonalds diet. Everyone knows what it feels like to have a significant other try to change you.
The way Spurlock films the inside of McDonalds restaurants greatly contrasts the images he uses in his film of McDonald’s marketing campaigns. He shows portions of McDonald’s commercials, cartoons, and billboards. The colors of the ads are always bright, the food always looks perfect, and the employees are always smiling. That never seems to be the case when Spurlock walks into a restaurant. In one particular scene Spurlock buys a Big Mac in china town. He points out that this was the best looking Big Mac he had ever bought. That Big Mac in, my opinion, looked nothing like the hamburgers one would see on a McDonalds. The beef looked dry, the lettuce was turning brown, and bun looked smashed.
One scene in particular stands out. In the scene Spurlock is speaking to the lawyer who filing a lawsuit against McDonalds. Spurlock and the lawyer are sitting across from each other at a McDonalds talking. In the background you can see Ronald McDonald appears to be eaves dropping on their conversation. The scene suggests that we can’t escape McDonalds.
Spurlock's argument in Supersize me is that the fast food restaurants are malignant, bordering on sociopathic. He opens with facts about the rise in numbers of overweight people in America and introduces the suit that inspired the film. Starting out with facts is always a good design choice in my opinion, it shows some respect for the viewer's intelligence rather than immediately pulling at emotional strings and creates a frame for the rest of the documentary. He then proceeds to make a weak move by showing the man spearheading suits against the fast food companies, who had won against the tobacco companies, the idea that fast food is addictive is pressed throughout the film and I would agree with that but I'm annoyed by the obvious attempt at association here. Perhaps one of his most striking arguments is throwing up, but it is only shocking and it's clear that he just kept eating past a point that any reasonable person would have stopped at, people will eat what they can handle and he did not that is another annoying tactic. We are then told that “Left unabated obesity will overtake smoking as a preventable cause of death.”, this is continuing the attempt at drawing up a correlation between the two unhealthy activities and is fairly effective along with the later examples of why fast food is addictive. The number of overweight kids having doubled is worrisome and then when we are told of the effect diabetes has on lifespan it becomes disturbing. The amounts of money the fast food companies spend on advertising doesn't really help his main argument much, they are companies, but the amount spent to advertise healthy foods in comparison is alarming. His getting sick and damaging his liver from eating only mcdonalds in conjunction with the argument that fast food is made to be addicting is a powerful answer to the premise of the film, proving that Mcdonalds intends for you to eat it's food regularly and that that is very unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteSome of the arguments he made were weak, particularly the defense of not exercising because “they didn't have enough time.” or that girl in the school for whom it isn't reasonable to be healthy because of this and that reason that just smacks of poor rationalization to me when they then go and eat Mcdonalds. He makes the points that fast food is very unheathly for you and that the fast food companies are malignant well but the documentary tries to shift all the blame on the companies when lifestyle definitely also plays a major roll in obesity.
Spurlock’s argument was that the excessive access and outlets to fast food chains are one of the main issues concerning the U.S obesity crisis, McDonald’s being its catalyst and example for the sake of the documentary. Although the documentary was satirical Spurlock uses factual records and statements made by companies that remind us that this is a serious issue. Key themes and patterns were used in the documentary as well that further painted the picture what Spurlock was trying convey. The ominous, erry propaganda used to transition to new parts of the documentary further influenced our feelings towards the franchise. He does an experiment that caused for him to go on a 30 day McDonald diet that ends up causing serious health problems for him before he even reached the 30-day mark. The consistent showing of obese people in the film did indeed help the agenda of the documentary, even at the cost of peoples privacy and lives. This part of the documentary I didn’t necessarily agree with and I think it was slightly biased in its perception of America. It focused solely on the negatives and neglected to show much of the positive. The statistics definitely shocked me as to how many people are in fact obese in America and the massive amount of health complications that come from fast food. It was extremely persuasive in even having me second guess eating at a Mcdonalds again.
ReplyDeleteIn the documentary, Supersize Me, Spurlock is making the argument that obesity in America is a growing problem, and much of the problem lies with American’s propensity to eat fast food, which is unhealthy in every aspect. For starters, the documentary is a very eye-opening and compelling production. Throughout the film, of all the techniques employed by Spurlock, I do not feel that even one was ineffective in persuading me to side with his argument. As I mentioned above, there were a number of effective persuasive techniques used by Spurlock throughout the film, however, there were a few that really stood out. For instance, I felt that the image at the beginning of the film where the kids were singing and chanting the names of different fast food chains was very effective. This is an indication of how customary this unhealthy food is becoming in our society and that kids at a young age are eating and growing up on this food, which we should really be eating once a month. In another instance, when shown pictures of prominent faces in our country, the children were able to recognize Ronald McDonald more often than Jesus. In addition, the testimonials with numerous doctors, health administrators, attorneys, and food company administrators/executives were an excellent persuasive technique exercised by Spurlock in the film. These segments provided the viewers with information from professionals with knowledge in fields related to the “fast food problem.” What’s more, the testimonials with regular people on the streets of New York and other locations around the country were rather effective. In particular, the French woman who was talking about how she did not eat fast food in the United States because it was more unhealthy than in France and that the sizes of the menu items were far larger in the United States than they were in France.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this film about four or five times, and each time I watch it I become more aware of what types of foods that I am putting into my body. I do not believe that I will be eating fast food for a while, as is typically the case after watching this documentary.