REVISION- Examples of answers for Super Size Me
1. An answer which includes target audience (parents), representation (children and McDonald’s), purpose (to inform of the negative effects of eating fast-food) and style:
Parents are clearly targeted throughout the documentary, as MS uses his mainly expository style documentary to tell parents that fast-food companies are putting their children at risk and to inform them of the negative effects of fast-food by representing children as the victims and McDonald’s as the villains who are out to manipulate them.
The age group targeted for Super Size Me is people over 12- teenagers and adults. We know this because the BBFC has rated the film 12A for cinema release and the DVD 12. The MPAA has rate the film PG13 for cinema release and PG for DVD (educationally enhanced version). Morgan Spurlock (MS), as director, could easily have deleted the few scenes, but he didn’t which means this film is not appropriate for children. These are the use of mild-moderate swearing (‘bastard’ and ‘shit’ once each), an explicit sexual reference (to his libido) and the depiction of a medical procedure which is deemed unsuitable for viewing for that age group (rectal examination). He could easily have deleted these scenes but chose to leave them in. This shows that his target audience was in no way intended to be young children.
However, young children might be attracted to the documentary because of such details as the use of bright primary colours (red and yellow) and the amusing picture on the front of the DVD (MS with chips shoved in his mouth). This non-target audience would probably be amused by the cartons and easy-to understand facts, but become quite bored by the more complicated information and talking-heads. They might also become very upset by the portrayal of Ronald McDonald as evil, particularly in the satirical pictures by Ron English. Therefore, MS may even reach his non-target audience with his anti-fast-food message.
To get across his message MS uses mainly expository style in his documentary- the audience is addressed directly through the narrator who tells us what we see (anchorage). He speaks directly to his audience through use of voiceover, then by speaking directly to the camera, asking three questions which he claims he is going to answer throughout the film. This is his purpose- he makes it clear to us:
1- Are the food companies solely to blame for this epidemic?
2- Where does personal responsibility end and corporate responsibility begin?
3- Is fast-food really that bad for you?
The shot on the road at the start of film connotes that he’s going on a journey and his words anchor the meaning that we’re going with him: ‘Let’s find out. I’m ready. Super size me’.
He wants to inform his audience about the truths of the fast-food industry and in particular the fast-food giant McDonald’s. He wants to prove to us how damaging this food is for us by using himself as a human guinea-pig and going on a 30-day McDonald’s binge. By the end of the film his purpose is to have convinced us of his truth. He does this by setting himself up as trustworthy (believe me I’m one of you ‘average Joe’ approach- at start of film “that most of us know isn’t good for you to begin with” – identifies with audience ‘us’; beginning as (apparently) unbiased (“This Big Mac actually looks like the picture”- a compliment); goes on to show his vulnerable side through borderline performative/ subjective style as he pours his feelings onto the screen near the end of the documentary (mother on phone, talks about his libido, lets us into his house, shows his feelings; takes on experiment for us- we owe him- we should listen to him); by representing McD’s and fast-food cos. as knowingly harming us but not caring because of making profits, and by showing us the effects of eating fast-food on other people and himself (use of stats, talking heads, interviews with general public (feeling of interactive style but very carefully selected and edited, NB e.g. of women talking about exercise), sequence showing man going for operation, his own body changes etc.) e.g. Day 25 sequence- speeded up shots of people eating fast-food, meaning anchored by music “I hope you got fat”= makes audience believe that eating a lot of this food makes you fat.
We should also bear in mind that he wants to make money for his film company The Con and the distributors (Tartan Films in the UK), so that he can make more films in the future. Therefore he is very unlikely to offend his target audience even though he’s telling them they’re partly to blame for eating themselves into such an unhealthy state and telling parents that they’re partly to blame for allowing their children to eat in McDonald’s.
One way in which he gets his message across is by targeting parents.
The first image we see in the film is of children, instantly represented as innocent as they sing the Fast-food Rockers theme tune, the camera zooming in on the overweight girl and boy at the front, drawing the audience’s attention to the fact that they seem to love fast-food and they’re fat- you make the link. His preferred reading here is that fast-food makes kids fat not just happy (possible differential reading)- a message that MS never lets us forget. Throughout his documentary he tells the parents that McDonald’s (McD’s) and other fast-food companies are manipulating their children into buying their products. And worse still… they are knowingly harming their children. MS puts across this message through a combination of techniques, including: voiceover, interviews with experts, facts and emotive rhetoric, images of children, use of music and use of satirical pictures. Take for example the sequence where MS and John F. Banzhaf III are in a McDonald’s restaurant discussing McD’s:
Banzhaf is established in previous sequence- the first time we see him- as intelligent (use of language ‘spearheading’, mise-en-scene- surrounded by books, office equipment and piles of papers show he is busy and learned); conscientious in fight against evil corporations who manipulate the public (again piles of papers, talking about his past history of winning against tobacco industries); successful (his history- he won, see archival image of newspaper). He is also talking about a very serious product which kills people- when he switches to talking about McD’s we take that cognitive leap and assume that McD’s will also kill. Therefore very shocking when he goes on to talk about kids- parents immediately on alert.
In this same sequence- When he begins to talk about how McD’s approach the children he repeats the word ‘lure’- which has connotations of suspicious motives. We hear echoing high-pitched children’s laughter and shots of kids playing with Ronald McDonald. This makes the clown himself seem sinister, MS attacking the emblem at the heart of McD’s campaign to ‘lure’ these children in. Of course this will be upsetting for the parents to watch. MS has successfully planted seeds of wariness in parents’ minds, which he goes on to exploit later in the film.
MS also targets parents notably in the next scene with John F Banzaf III, at the end of section 3 ‘The Toxic Environment’. After another link between smoking and eating fast-food we see MS interviewing Banzhaf, both eating in a McD’s restaurant. The mise-en-scene here might seem contradictory- why are the director and the ‘expert’ in a McD’s? But actually it reinforces in the audience’s mind where the place is that harms their children. It’s HERE- in a McD’s.
In the interview Banzhaf explains McD’s psychology and how they manipulate children, effectively brainwashing them into wanting McD’s. MS jokes ‘That’s why, if I ever have kids, every time we pass McD’s, I’m going to punch him in the face”. We hear a laugh off camera from the film crew to anchor the fact that this is a joke. Although this is a joke, the shocking nature of how he hopes to solve the problem shows two things- one that he understands the parents’ problem of keeping the kids away from McD’s because it is programmed into the kids, therefore helping the audience to feel a little better about themselves as the guilty party for not having protected their children from this; two MS is showing how bad McDonald’s are for manipulating the children to such a degree that it might take something as horrible as MS’s suggestion to get the impulse out of them. This backs up MS’s representations of McD’s as evil, children as victims and parents as stuck-in-the-middle. By focusing the blame on McD’s it shifts blame from the parents, making his target audience like him and more likely to listen because they don’t have to take all the blame on themselves. This is MS’s preferred reading of the text, although the non-target audience of McD’s might have a differential reading of the parents should take some of the blame too- this is not an angle that MS highlights.
The interview cuts to scenes of kids having fun. Then we see MS mucking about
in the play area- audience reaction? “Aww! Look it’s fun”. Music lively- Wesley Willis ‘Rock and Roll McDonald’s’ backing up idea of fun. Then- lyrics change, voice not in tune, disharmony is uncomfortable to listen to. The screen is filled with a close-up of MS’s bottom filling the slide which has a strong message that this will happen to your kids- clear intertextual reference- they will be like Augustus Gloop ‘the fat kid’ in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory getting stuck up the slide- and it will be all your fault. Fear and Guilt are being played on here. To reinforce this message an image of a burger comes onto the screen, with a line from the song anchoring the message “will make you fat”. The target audience of parents realise that they were ‘lured’ into thinking McD’s looked fun at the start of this sequence, but the reality is that it is dangerous for their children’s health.
Then it cuts to one of the satirical pictures by Ron English which are used to parody McD’s, with the title of the next sequence ‘The Impact’, cutting straight into a fact about the impact of McD’s on kids. The juxtaposition of these two sequences is to show the target audience of parents the direct link between the brainwashing of children and illnesses that eating too much fast-food causes, with the added effect of reinforcing the representation of McD’s as evil because they are responsible (according to MS) for the bad health of a nation.
Parents will also be worried after watching the sequence in which kids are interviewed about famous people they recognise. The children MS chose to include in his documentary all recognised Ronald McDonald and labelled him ‘helpful’, ‘funny’ and ‘he plays’. Some of them failed to recognise the president George Bush and even Jesus. MS doesn’t need to use voiceover here, instead switching into observational style (observational – often without voice-over, long takes; makes point quietly, gently) as he cleverly allows parents to stew over this without adding his own thoughts. They will most likely be worried about this, and again blaming themselves. What’s MS’s point? Merely to re-emphasise that children are victims (brainwashed) of the evil McDonald’s (brainwashers). Spurlock seems eager to get back to hammering his point home and goes back to expository mode as we are given statistics to show the length that McD’s go to to brainwash your children (more than $1.4 billion dollars spent on McD’s advertising last year in contrast to only $2 million on fruit and veg campaign). This worries the parents as they take on board MS’s representation of McD’s as relentless in ‘luring’ their kids in.
After a sequence on nutrition in which MS uses the ‘hidden camera’ effect with jiggly camera movement and blurred shots (connotations of spy work) to make McD’s seem like enemies, we see one of Ron English’s satirical pictures in which he portrays a child clown. The use of desaturated greys and blues are threatening (like shadows- creepy) and are in stark contrast to the bright red (so that the red stands out like a warning). The picture is disconcerting as the clown looks threatening. The picture’s meaning is anchored by the use of a sound bridge where MS continues the sound from the last clip of his nutritionist saying, “It’s starting to become dangerous. I’m getting nervous for you”. The connotation here is that both MS and children are at risk from McD’s. Here MS again presents a two-fold representation- McD’s as threatening and dangerous; the fast-food fan/ children as victims, at risk. Parents will be particularly alarmed by the distorted image of the clown- associated with children’s innocence.
Again, MS uses clever juxtaposition of sequences, moving on to talking about schools- the children’s heartland- where parents expect them to be well looked after. According to MS, as he switches into investigative style, his visits to schools prove that there is a problem with fast-food here too. However, instead of delving into why schools don’t do more, he skirts around the issue and uses this information to show the difference between a healthy school and two schools that allow fast-food- the results showing that the behaviour and grades were improved in the school that had the healthy food. This backs up his argument that fast-food is unhealthy, and that it is affecting our children. While he mentions briefly the responsibility of the education system, the lure of soft drinks giants who pay schools to use their drinks machines and the lack of P.E.- why did he not investigate the fast-food in schools issue further? He wants the audience to focus our blame on McD’s and the fast-food industry. He does not want his documentary to become reflexive here as we might begin to question his truth. He wants us to swallow everything he tells us. His documentary is carefully constructed to make us believe we have room to think for ourselves but he rushes back to his main message at every given opportunity. Perhaps he’ll take on the issue of the government another day? It would take away from the battle he is fighting if he took it on in this film. This links back in to his purpose- to inform the public of the dangers of eating McD’s and fast-food. But overall he really does seem to be out to get McDonald’s.