THE NEW YORK TIMES – “Super Size Me” helped lead a backlash against McDonald’s. Twenty years on, the industry is bigger than ever.
The camera zooms in on a large woman, sitting on a cooler at the beach. It cuts to a shirtless man, also quite large, his face blurred out.
The next shot shows another overweight man, sitting on a beach towel with plastic grocery bags arrayed in front of him.
“America has now become the fattest nation in the world. Congratulations,” a voice narrates. “Nearly 100 million Americans are today either overweight or obese.”
At the end of this soliloquy, the opening credits roll — accompanied by Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.”
“Fast food is the second-largest private employment sector in the country, after hospitals, and 36 percent of Americans — about 84 million people — eat fast food on any given day.”
So begins “Super Size Me,” which was released 20 years ago this month.
Directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, the bootstrapped, lo-fi documentary was a smash hit, grossing more than $22 million on a $65,000 budget.
Following Mr. Spurlock as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days — and the ill effects that diet had on his health — the film became the high-water mark in a tide of sentiment against fast food.
McDonald’s, specifically, became a symbol for the glossy hegemony of American capitalism both at home and abroad.
“McJobs” became a term for low-paying, dead-end positions, “McMansions” for garish, oversize houses.
In 1992, the political theorist Benjamin Barber used the term “McWorld” as shorthand for emergent neoliberal dominance; seven years later, protesters against the World Trade Organization seemed to agree, launching a newspaper box through a McDonald’s window during the “Battle of Seattle” marches.
Two years after that, Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” was published …
