Morgan Spurlock, director and star of the acclaimed documentary "Supersize Me," mixed muckraking and standup comedy in a lively speech to a packed Cohen Auditorium Wednesday night.
Spurlock bounded onto the stage in jeans and a Tufts hooded sweatshirt, briefly bemoaning John Kerry's loss in Tuesday's presidential election before getting down to business. "Let's talk about the fat movie," he said.
"Supersize Me" chronicles Spurlock's quest to illuminate Americans' poor eating and exercise habits by eating McDonald's for 30 days straight and documenting the effects.
Spurlock said the idea occurred to him on Thanksgiving Day in 2002, as he was watching television on a full stomach of "stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy - mmmm gravy - green beans and pie with gravy, too."
Later that year, Spurlock began following a news story about two obese teenagers, Jazlyn Bradley and Ashley Pelman, whose parents sued McDonald's, asserting the restaurant was responsible for their condition.
Spurlock at first thought the lawsuit was "crazy," but then began to realize that the company's advertising policies, particularly towards children, were indeed misleading.
"The spokesperson for McDonald's on TV said 'You can't link our food to these girls' being sick or obese - our food is healthy, nutritious, and good for you,'" he said.
"I said, come on. If that's true shouldn't I be able to eat it for 30 days straight? Shouldn't I be able to live the all-American dream and overeat and under-exercise?"
"Then the light bulb went off," he said, and his project began to gather momentum.
Spurlock chose McDonald's because of the chain's fame and size. "I picked the company that I thought could influence the industry," he said. "It's been franchised all over the world, the only continent [where] they don't have [a McDonald's] is Antarctica."
To prove his point about the negative cultural and health effects of fast food, Spurlock ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's every day for 30 days.
He tried every item on the menu at least once, finished eating all portions, and chose the "supersize" option whenever McDonald's staff offered it. He filmed the endeavor, while securing the supervision of three doctors: a liver specialist, a cardiologist and a general practitioner.
Serious health problems ensued, beyond what Spurlock's doctors had anticipated. "My liver was so filled with fat, the doctors were comparing it to p??t?©," he said. One doctor told Spurlock that if his liver were that of an alcoholic, he'd either have to stop drinking or die.
Spurlock's film achieved critical and popular success - and concrete results. Sales of McDonald's in the United Kingdom declined by 70 percent after the release of "Supersize Me."
McDonald's also discontinued its supersize option around the film's release date and later introduced an exercise video for children featuring Ronald McDonald.
The day before the movie opened McDonald's premiered its "Go Active" Adult Happy Meal, which contains a salad, a bottle of water, and a pedometer, "so you can count the steps from the car to the counter," Spurlock joked.
Spurlock said McDonald's health initiatives were merely a front to improve the corporation's image. "We're getting a fantastic lettuce curtain in front of a big fat stage," Spurlock said. "They're doing what they do best, misleading us with propaganda."
And though McDonald's said it sold 15 million salads in the past year, Spurlock said this figure was a public relations canard. "McDonald's feeds 46 million people a day - that's 17 billion people a year," he said. "That means not even one percent of the people who go to McDonald's make a healthy choice."
McDonald's solidified its healthy image by funding the Olympics and signing merchandising partnerships with athletes such as tennis star Serena Williams and all-around gymnastics gold medalist Carly Patterson.
"It's health by association, gold medal winner by association," Spurlock said. People think "it must be good for me somehow; all these athletes must eat it, right?"
Spurlock said corporate influence in the media is hard for consumers to resist. "The power of companies is in their money," he said. "There are always radio or TV stations that won't talk to me [or broadcast my message] because McDonald's is one of their biggest sponsors. These companies have the power to influence what you read and see and hear."
Powerful corporate advertising and the fast food movement have undermined not only Americans' physical health but also their cultural wellbeing and family unity, Spurlock said.
"The film isn't about McDonalds, but more of an attack on American eating and living," he said. "The days of us sitting around having a good relationship with each other and with food are gone."
Asked about the objectivity of documentary films such as "Supersize Me" and Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," Spurlock said the nature of filmmaking requires subjective decision-making and emotional appeals.
Spurlock said he wants viewers who see the film "to say, you know what? I need to take better care of me - exercise more, eat better, go down to my kids' school and see what they are feeding them."
He urged students to cook among friends for fun and nutritional wellness.
"You ask what one person can do?" he asked. "[As one person] you can do everything, you can do so much. You can really change the world if you want, it all starts with believing in an idea," he said.
Spurlock also expressed disgust at George W. Bush's win in Tuesday's election, but vowed not to give up his agenda. "The last thing I'm going to do is run off to Canada or France or change my name to Jean Pierre," he said. "I'm going to do what I do best - make as many movies and TV shows that make people think about the state of the world."
Spurlock's current project is a TV show called "30 Days." The pilot takes a suburban white man out of his normal life for 30 days and places him with a Muslim family, after which his views on Islam and cultural marginalization change radically.
Spurlock received a standing ovation from the audience. "He made [the speech] entertaining, but at the same time brought across the same kind of personality and objectives he wanted to bring across in the movie," freshman Matt Chan said.
Lecture Series Co-Chair Jillian Rennie was pleased with Spurlock's address. "We were really happy with the energy he brought to the message and made it pertinent to everyone in the audience," she said.
The lecture was sponsored by Lecture Series and Hillel as part of "Vitality," a new campus-wide health initiative.<$>
