Relationship Between Movies and Society

D’Mone’ Clendinen
Nov. 2011
Visual Literacy
Relationship between Movies and Society

Movies and society are deeply intertwined in that they influence each other. When one views a movie, they place themselves in that predicament and try to feel what the characters are feeling. In turn, when directors observe society, they are influenced into making films about it as done with Film Noir. Film Noir came about in the 1940’s to the late 1950’s and it publicized what was going on in that time such as the Cold War, the aftermath of World War II. In this case, society influenced movies. In my opinion, people want to watch interesting documentaries of things that can possibly occur or what is occurring, like the movie “SuperSize Me” for example. The director, Morgan Spurlock noticed that fast food was such a popular thing in America, especially MacDonald’s. At the time, MacDonald’s had the option of getting a “super-sized” meal. Spurlock made an observation that many people ordered the “super-sized” meal, so he used himself to show the world how McDonalds’ could change our health and potentially, our life.

Spurlock came up with the experiment of eating meals and “supersized” meals if asked by cashier, from MacDonald’s three times a day for thirty days. Prior to the experiment, he was tested by a general practitioner, cardiologist, dietitian and a few other doctors who all concluded that Spurlock’s health was in great shape. Throughout his experiment, these doctors will be monitoring his health to make sure that he is not dangerously harming his health. He is to perform no exercise for those thirty days because normally, those that eat the most MacDonald’s do not exercise much, if at all. So to ensure that he got the full experience, he limited his steps to less than 5,000 a day.

When he started this experiment, he weighed 185.5 pounds. After five days, he was at 195. He noticed that he started to get stomach pains and he began to throw up in parking lots of MacDonald’s. Eventually, MacDonald’s became his comfort food which caused him to gain eight more pounds, putting him a 203.5. By day 21, he began having heart palpitations and his doctors told him to stop his experiment but he insisted on continuing.

At the end of the thirty day experiment, he consumed nine, “supersized” meals. The doctors said that his health was damaged. One even said that because of this experiment, he will suffer with heart problems, even if he loses the weight.

Shortly after this movie was released, MacDonald’s stopped offering to “supersize” a meal. It also caused MacDonald’s to put healthier items on their menu. In this case, this movie influenced society in that it showed us what we were doing with our health. With this, people became more aware of what they ordered from MacDonald’s, which in turn saved many people’s health.