Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock

1097 Words3 Pages

Documentary Film Analysis Paper

In a society that is facing numerous problems, such as economic devastation, one major problem is often disregarded, growing obesity. As the American society keeps growing, so does growth of the fast food industry and the epidemic of obesity. In order to further investigate the main cause of obesity, Morgan Spurlock, the film director and main character, decides to criticize the fast food industry for its connection with obesity in America. In his documentary Spurlock performs a radical experiment that drives him to eat only from McDonald's and order a super-sized meal whenever he is asked. By including visual and textual techniques, rhetorical appeals, and argumentative evidences, Morgan Spurlock was able to help viewers know the risks of fast food and how it has caused America to be the world's “fattest country”.

The first step that Spurlock utilizes is documenting his daily life through this modified “McDiet. He include visual aspects in his documentary, like personal footage, to help support his claim. Throughout this documentary, Spurlock includes records of him eating out of only McDonald's every day for a month. He documents his every meal and the experiences he has after eating. He would record how he is feeling and his health condition at many points in the film. From day one to day thirty, he shows how much he had eaten and his final analysis of his experiment. The immoderate McDonald's diet that Spurlock consumed helps show the health risks, consequences, and dangers of fast food. By performing this experiment, Spurlock was able to prove that fast food is a major factor in rising health and obesity problems. Another analytical track that Spurlock incorporated is the uses of text to he...

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... the health risks that are caused from eating McDonald's and other fast food, Spurlock incorporates many visual and textual pieces into this documentary. This includes documenting his personal life throughout the experiment and his final health analysis graph from the start to the end. He also includes many instances of evidence to help support his argument. He includes his own personal experience, the experience from other individuals, and expert testimonies. By including all of this, Spurlock was able to justify his reasoning towards criticizing the fast food restaurants for their role in the obesity epidemic. The techniques used by Morgan Spurlock is very effective in detailing the causes and effects of obesity in order to make people more aware of the situation.

Works Cited

Super Size Me. Dir. Morgan Spurlock. Perf. Morgan Spurlock. Sony Pictures, 2005. DVD.

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