ETHICAL DILEMMA ANALYSIS ON THE FILM SUPER SIZE ME

Ethical dilemma analysis on the film Super Size Me

Ethical dilemma analysis on the film Super Size Me

For many years, those little pink packets of Sweet'N'Low sugar substitute that you'd find on the tables of truck stops and Denny's restaurants carried a warning stating that experiments with saccharin, the main ingredient in Sweet'N'Low, was found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. This shocking warning was enough for many diners, including myself, to avoid the stuff at any cost, and happily opt for the more fattening, but ultimately more trustworthy alternative, sugar. Nowadays, those pink packets no longer carry this warning. You see, years after the government forced this disclaimer to be printed on the packets, it became apparent that the levels of saccharin given to the lab animals by experimenters in the studies that determined this substance to be carcinogenic were quantities far exceeding commensurate doses for typical humans. Imagine, if you will, consuming several pounds of Sweet'N'Low a week. You might expect that eating so much Sweet'N'Low would cause cancer. In fact, it seems that eating that much of anything would cause cancer.

The reason I bring up this seemingly unrelated tale is because it relates to the scientific technique of Morgan Spurlock, the director of Super Size Me, and the way this movie has been marketed to the public.

True, this is one of the most disgustingly pleasurable movies I have seen in a very long time, and it showcases the jaw-dropping effects of America's love with fatty foods on the body of a Joe Sixpack-- and tops it off with grisly footage of deteriorating health, informational charts, and disturbing interviews with health professionals, fast food pundits, and junk food junkies, and of course, the hallmark of any great documentary, poorly drawn South Park-like cartoons that condense the complexities of reality into expansive and logically irrefutable blanket statements.

The problem is, many will engage this movie with the hope of confirming their beliefs, less as interlocutors wanting to synthesize a dialogue with the material, and more as wide-eyed, gawking spectators completely bypassing any intellectual nourishment that could come from the film and directly mainlining the opiate tales of excess that lead to Spurlock's eventual development of seemingly serious health conditions. It seems pretty clear from this vantage point that this the effect that Spurlock wants the movie to have on the audience. ...