Individual Entry: 30 Days
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July 02, 2005

TV : 30 Days

Last year Morgan Spurlock released his documentary "Supersize Me" in which he ate nothing but MacDonald's food for 30 days while monitoring the effects it had on his health (I'll give you a hint – it wasn't good). The movie was excellent, exploring a multitude of issues related to America's fast food culture without resorting to "ambush journalism" as perfected by a certain other filmmaker.

"Supersize Me" was nominated for an academy award, but lost to a film by that other guy. However Spurlock's success did appear to get him the attention of folks at the FX network, and he's been given a chance to produce five, one hour documentaries as a series entitled "30 days". So far 3 episodes have aired (although FX is repeating them, so it may in fact be possible to see them all of them again by the end of the summer).

The idea of 30 Days is for people to spend 30 days walking in someone else's shoes. The first episode was Spurlock and his longsuffering fiancée Alex to live for 30 days on minimum wage in Columbus Ohio (an average American city). The episode showed (as opposed to talked about) the issues faced by the working poor. It was a wonderful piece of documentary art.

The second episode was about someone who went on an anti-aging regime promoted by certain doctors – taking steroids, human growth hormone, vitamins, etc. all to turn back the clock and make his body "younger". Frankly, I found this to be a weaker episode, although I think the side effects he experienced were enough to scare any guy off the program.

This week's episode was about a devout and active Christian who knew almost nothing about Islam living for 30 days as a Muslim man in Dearborn, MI. It was enlightening both in terms of what it showed about everyday Islam and also about how this guy dealt with his own faith while trying to respect the community he was temporarily a part of. It was all handled with a lot of respect for all parties.

Next week appears to be about another devout Christian who shares an apartment with a gay man for 30 days in San Francisco's Castro District (the heart of the local homosexual community.

If you like good documentaries, and want to have some idea how other people live, I strongly recommend the series.

Posted by Steven at July 2, 2005 11:48 AM