My real name

I had absolutely no interest in the movie that made Morgan Spurlock’s name, Supersize Me, because it seemed like another part of the Michael Moore school of sensational documentaries. I heard positive things about this series somewhere though, and it showed up on Netflix Instant, so I decided to check it out. It’s really really good. There’s a mix of “big issue” episodes (Minuteman lives with illegal immigrant family, Christian lives with Muslims) and smaller scale social experiment episodes (mother drinks at a college student pace for 30 days to show her ASU daughter the risk). While it seems a little sappy to spell it out this way, I think the core message of this show is that when we actually approach people we may think we disagree with as people, we tend to recognize our common humanity. I’m always worried going into each episode that I’m going to get all anxious and political-y feeling, but the resolution is usually such a good relief. It does make me wonder how the whole thing is set up, sometimes it seems like the placements are a little too perfect, but not so much that it makes the show unbelievable as a documentary.