I don't really have any desire to see the critically acclaimed movie "Precious." IMDB has a plot summary that reads, in part, "In 1987, obese, illiterate, black 16-year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with her dysfunctional family; she has been raped and impregnated twice by her father..."
Not really my idea of a movie that grips my attention, but that's okay.
In a move that isn't all that surprising, Howard Stern made the news (again) by criticising Sidibe's weight on his Sirius radio show. He said, in part, "There's the most enormous, fat black chick I've ever seen. She is enormous. Everyone's pretending she's a part of show business and she's never going to be in another movie," Stern ranted. "She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she's never going to have another shot. What movie is she gonna be in?"
Her weight is definitely on the high side. She claimed to Oprah that her first diet was at the age of six. She decided to love herself and her body, making her sound like one of the members of the fat acceptance movement.
But is Howard Stern wrong?
He refuses to apologize for the remarks. From an article posted at Contactmusic.com: "Stern's comments stirred up a swathe of controversy in the U.S., but he's standing by his opinion - insisting Sidibe should not be held up as a role model for overweight people, because obesity is a life-threatening condition."
He also apparently said that she will have trouble with landing roles in Hollywood due to her weight.
From the article: "I feel this girl is going to kill herself - you can't eat like this. I did enjoy her performance (in Precious) I have nothing against her, I'm just trying to say she's enormous...The girl has got tremendous problems and she needs help. And we got slammed (for saying it)."
I won't argue whether Stern is an opinionated ass or talking head like so many others who capitalize on their fame by stirring controversy. The question is, how right is he?
There are those who are saying he's full of it because Gabby is already wrapping a second movie and is starting in a TV pilot. She also has had support from some heavy hitters...no pun intended...in Hollywood such as Oprah Winfrey. Ha ha! Take that, Stern!
At the same time I'm wondering how many grossly obese actors and actresses (especially actresses) are in movies and television. I could probably count them on one hand, and these were very talented people who excelled in their craft...usually as comedians, or people who slid into acting from a comedy career. Even those that are famous and overweight are often not known for their acting career; Oprah, a one-woman business mogul, has a well known struggle with food. But she's not known for being an actress (nor is she truly grossly obese). She's a savvy businesswoman with her fingers in many media revenue streams. Sidibe is a newcomer in Hollywood with one hit movie on her resume.
And there is the fact that she is fat. She can pretend that it won't have an impact on her career, but observation tells us that it simply isn't true. Even little slips of the tongue tell us that it is something on the minds of people around her. The director of Precious apparently said on the carpet: "No one in Hollywood told me they wanted to see a movie about a 350 pound black girl who had HIV," Daniels said at the podium. Immediately realizing his gaffe, Daniels noted, "She's not 350 pounds, Gabby...but the book says...before you were hired."
The fact is that her weight right now is stirring controversy, increasing her publicity stops with more interviews in part because it's unusual to have a 350 pound actress that has managed to get nominated for so many awards. The director was quoted that after seeing her audition tape that she seemed to be in a state of denial of her weight.
Another fact; the movie was about an overweight, sexually and physically abused poor black girl impregnated by her father. What big names in Hollywood would pull off this role without a fat suit? This girl had some acting skills and fit the physical specifications the role required. But that doesn't mean that she's going to have a career in Hollywood. And if you see the train wreck that has come from other flash-in-the-pans, chances are she'll enjoy a window of fame then slowly peter away into nothing.
This girl is having a lot of publicity specifically because she is in a unique position. A 350 pound actress made a name for herself in a movie that garnered a lot of awards. If this were commonplace we wouldn't be hearing about it, and soon it'll disappear as someone else takes over the public's short attention span, and that's when you find out how much staying power and talent the girl really has. The true talents are the ones that you see in movie after movie and you can't even recall when you last paid attention to her, yet you still find her name coming up for Hollywood roles.
I'm afraid that Howard Stern was being realistic here. Harsh, uncouth, but realistic. Hollywood is fascinated by freak breakouts and the media loves to swirl around fresh meat so long as the public buys the gossip rags. It doesn't take a genius to see that the women on the covers of magazines aren't 350 pounds; weight is usually a topic for deriding the Jessica Simpson's and Oprah Winfrey's to emphasize the latest "Oh My God She's Gaining Weight From Breakup/Illness/Stress/Bizarre Career Event" headline, or "See Who's Losing Weight And How They Did It" article.
The real story will come if Sidibe is on the covers of magazines in another year highlighting her latest movie or television project and not gossip on her personal life or yet another weight-acceptance article. Until then, I think Stern has a point. My inclination is to believe that Sidibe is a flash in the gossip pan that will disappear in a short amount of time, for better or worse.
Showing posts with label movie reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie reviews. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Monday, April 13, 2009
Supersize Me!
My father-in-law, wife, and I watched the Morgan Spurlock movie "Supersize Me" last night. It is a documentary that took on the issue of obesity in America and basically blamed McDonald's (and the fast food industry in general) by having the documentarian (Spurlock) going on a "McDonald's-only" diet for a month and documenting the effects on his health. The end is not very surprising; he gained twenty-some pounds, his blood chemistry was wacky, he had mood swings and overall generally felt ill.
I believe that fast food is but one component in the obesity puzzle. The portions Americans eat, in fast food joints or sit-down restaurants or at home, have spiraled out of control. This documentary could easily have highlighted the effects and could have been an effective tool in educating people about this aspect of the problem.
But it doesn't.
Why? Because unless you have absolutely no ability to think critically, you have to see right off the bat that he set the diet to "prove" that McDonald's is a selfish evil corporation peddling poison to citizens. He had very simple rules for his experiment:
His diet ended up being approximately 5,000 calories a day. The fact that this was fast food meant that a larger proportion of the calories were comprised of fat than other more nutritious components of what would have been a healthy diet, but most people who consume 5,000 calories a day will gain weight. I'd like to know what would happen if you took an average American and gave them a diet of 5,000 calories for a month what would happen to them; on top of that, the person must not exercise. Morgan Spurlock did not do additional exercise and even documented with a pedometer how much walking he did in his day while walking down the sidewalk to a nearby McD's for his meals.
Instead of highlighting the evils of fast food, what he actually highlighted were the evils of overeating. Is ice cream evil and horrible? Would I prove it by going on a diet of Breyer's for a month, breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Or would it be just highlighting that overindulging for a long length of time is bad for you, period?
The documentary had a large amount of good information regarding obesity in America and statistics on the fast food industry. I felt the driving publicity stunt of following his "McDiet" detracted from what could have been a good message for your health; stop overeating and eat more healthy foods. The fortunate part of the experience was that Morgan didn't give large amounts of screen time to his "vegan chef" wife who tried to convince him of how abominable his experiment was and how he was killing himself on meats. And McDonald's food. But mostly the meat was bad.
The movie was also a little dated but that isn't necessarily the movie's fault. The epilogue pointed out that supersize is no longer offered; it was removed from menus shortly after the movie premiered. They took a little pride in believing it was because of the movie (maybe it was, I wouldn't be surprised). But the movie had other information that portrayed a kind of conspiracy that isn't there; McDonalds claimed to have their nutrition information online, but as of the time near the filming of the movie less than half of households have access to the Internet. He visits multiple restaurants and most of them can't produce a pamphlet of the nutrition information.
Internet access continues to grow; it's virtually assumed that the average citizen in America has Internet access, if not at home then at schools and libraries.
The nutrition information issue; I could believe that it's hard to find information in most restaurants, but McDonald's is the wrong one to pick on. I find a nutrition table now on the papers covering the serving trays. The wrappers have information on the items they contain. The part that confused me a bit was that I could have sworn that in some of the scenes portrayed in the movie had McDonald's workers holding containers with the nutrition label on them. I was pretty sure it was in there because I remember thinking that the movie wasn't that old if it had that information printed on the boxes and wrappers...I could be wrong but haven't verified this with a re-watching of the documentary. The facts to me point out that McDonald's and many other fast food restaurants make health information available and Americans simply don't care and ignore the information. The food isn't bad until you overeat and overindulge for your lifestyle.
Another mystery in the movie was Don Gorske. I admired fact that they had him in the movie despite the fact that I thought he was actually a case against Morgan's hypothesis. Don Gorske has eaten over 23,000 Big Mac's in his life. Despite eating 2 Big Mac's a day, this six-foot-two average guy is 185 pounds and has a cholesterol of 140. While he was a topic in the movie, there was never an explanation or exploration to why this guy wasn't four hundred pounds with a waxy drip of cholesterol sliding from his earholes as was implied was in Morgan's future if he stayed on this diet for another two months.
Overall the movie was food for thought and I recommend watching it not for the commentary on fast food as much as for being a good example of how to undermine your message with an elaborate staging of a situation that amounts to a rediculous publicity stunt. Had he not spent a month force-feeding himself a diet that he said, as he was putting the burgers and fries into his mouth, made him feel ill then his conclusions might have held more weight. As it stands I thought that his otherwise good message only gained any attention because it made a popular and wealthy corporation bristle at some bad publicity.
I believe that fast food is but one component in the obesity puzzle. The portions Americans eat, in fast food joints or sit-down restaurants or at home, have spiraled out of control. This documentary could easily have highlighted the effects and could have been an effective tool in educating people about this aspect of the problem.
But it doesn't.
Why? Because unless you have absolutely no ability to think critically, you have to see right off the bat that he set the diet to "prove" that McDonald's is a selfish evil corporation peddling poison to citizens. He had very simple rules for his experiment:
- The only foods he ate would be from McD's.
- If they asked him to supersize it, he would.
- He was going to have at least once each item on the menu
- He would have three meals a day, breakfast lunch and dinner.
His diet ended up being approximately 5,000 calories a day. The fact that this was fast food meant that a larger proportion of the calories were comprised of fat than other more nutritious components of what would have been a healthy diet, but most people who consume 5,000 calories a day will gain weight. I'd like to know what would happen if you took an average American and gave them a diet of 5,000 calories for a month what would happen to them; on top of that, the person must not exercise. Morgan Spurlock did not do additional exercise and even documented with a pedometer how much walking he did in his day while walking down the sidewalk to a nearby McD's for his meals.
Instead of highlighting the evils of fast food, what he actually highlighted were the evils of overeating. Is ice cream evil and horrible? Would I prove it by going on a diet of Breyer's for a month, breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Or would it be just highlighting that overindulging for a long length of time is bad for you, period?
The documentary had a large amount of good information regarding obesity in America and statistics on the fast food industry. I felt the driving publicity stunt of following his "McDiet" detracted from what could have been a good message for your health; stop overeating and eat more healthy foods. The fortunate part of the experience was that Morgan didn't give large amounts of screen time to his "vegan chef" wife who tried to convince him of how abominable his experiment was and how he was killing himself on meats. And McDonald's food. But mostly the meat was bad.
The movie was also a little dated but that isn't necessarily the movie's fault. The epilogue pointed out that supersize is no longer offered; it was removed from menus shortly after the movie premiered. They took a little pride in believing it was because of the movie (maybe it was, I wouldn't be surprised). But the movie had other information that portrayed a kind of conspiracy that isn't there; McDonalds claimed to have their nutrition information online, but as of the time near the filming of the movie less than half of households have access to the Internet. He visits multiple restaurants and most of them can't produce a pamphlet of the nutrition information.
Internet access continues to grow; it's virtually assumed that the average citizen in America has Internet access, if not at home then at schools and libraries.
The nutrition information issue; I could believe that it's hard to find information in most restaurants, but McDonald's is the wrong one to pick on. I find a nutrition table now on the papers covering the serving trays. The wrappers have information on the items they contain. The part that confused me a bit was that I could have sworn that in some of the scenes portrayed in the movie had McDonald's workers holding containers with the nutrition label on them. I was pretty sure it was in there because I remember thinking that the movie wasn't that old if it had that information printed on the boxes and wrappers...I could be wrong but haven't verified this with a re-watching of the documentary. The facts to me point out that McDonald's and many other fast food restaurants make health information available and Americans simply don't care and ignore the information. The food isn't bad until you overeat and overindulge for your lifestyle.
Another mystery in the movie was Don Gorske. I admired fact that they had him in the movie despite the fact that I thought he was actually a case against Morgan's hypothesis. Don Gorske has eaten over 23,000 Big Mac's in his life. Despite eating 2 Big Mac's a day, this six-foot-two average guy is 185 pounds and has a cholesterol of 140. While he was a topic in the movie, there was never an explanation or exploration to why this guy wasn't four hundred pounds with a waxy drip of cholesterol sliding from his earholes as was implied was in Morgan's future if he stayed on this diet for another two months.
Overall the movie was food for thought and I recommend watching it not for the commentary on fast food as much as for being a good example of how to undermine your message with an elaborate staging of a situation that amounts to a rediculous publicity stunt. Had he not spent a month force-feeding himself a diet that he said, as he was putting the burgers and fries into his mouth, made him feel ill then his conclusions might have held more weight. As it stands I thought that his otherwise good message only gained any attention because it made a popular and wealthy corporation bristle at some bad publicity.
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