Industrial Food Complex

Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann discuss the recent popularity growth of food oriented documentaries in their article Contemporary Eco-Food Films: the Documentary Tradition. Murray and Heumann observe that many recent food documentaries have focused on the negative ecological impact of industrial food production techniques and they argue that these films can be categorized by their different aesthetic approaches to arouse social reform, each with varying degrees of effectiveness. Murray and Heumann claim that documentaries such as Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me rely on the narrator's performance to show one individual's emotional response to modern industrialization. Other recent documentaries such as Food Inc. and King Corn attempt to invoke environmental nostalgia in order to inspire viewers to embrace the golden days of local family-owned farms as opposed to corporate factory farms. They go on to say that “the film’s assertions are weakened, however, not only because of an over-reliance on the authority of a narrator, but also because the film argues its points from single examples”.

Ultimately Murray and Heumann prefer the minimalist visual rhetoric employed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter in Our Daily Bread, another documentary targeting industrial food factories. They note that Geyrhalter does not rely on emotional narration or interviews to express his message. Rather he takes an objective, visual approach, displaying the progressing stages of industrial food production for a multitude of plants and animals, climaxing with the harvest and slaughter at the end of the line. Murray and Heumann conclude that this simple approach of visual documentation without moral pronouncement is superior compared to explicit emotional appeals because it “provides ample room for audiences to interpret the actions documented to invent and engage in acts of their own”.

Critic Daniel Trilling reviewed Robert Kenner's documentary Food Inc., also noting its limited success at inciting social reform and comparing it to Upton Sinclair's famous muckraker novel The Jungle. Trilling states that Kenner, “when faced with the dilemma of whether to arouse disgust or empathy, it tries to do both, falling flat in the process”. Trilling agrees with Murray and Heumann that the sequences in Food Inc. showcasing footage of cramped animals in unnatural factory housing with emotionally charged voice-over narration pales in comparison with the austere shots of the German factory farms in the previously released Our Daily Bread or the “abject horror” conveyed in Supersize Me. Trilling describes Kenner's style as “Michael Moore lite”, in that he attempts to generate an emotional response from the audience with exaggerated, one-sided portrayals of victims and villains. Trilling argues that Kenner does not commit to Moore's partisan approach wholeheartedly but is instead too polite and patient, and that this compromise detracts from the film's overall impact. He concludes that Kenner's closing message on the effects of America's subsidized industrial food factories on Mexican farmers struggles to hold the interest of his largely American audience.

Anne Gilbert notes the increasing popularity of the “first-person diary-style approach” at documentary filmmaking in her review of Supersize Me. Like Murray and Heumann, Gilbert argues that Supersize Me's success comes mostly from Spurlock's charming performance. Even when Spurlock's 30-day McDonald's diet takes a turn for the worse, his persistent humor keeps the documentary from growing to heavy under the weight of the obvious health risks of the film's gimmicky hook. Gilbert also considers comparisons between documentary filmmakers Spurlock and Moore, but she argues that Spurlock's calm and fair approach is sufficiently effective “without invoking the in-your-face manner that makes Moore many friends and many more enemies”. However Gilbert also criticizes the narrow scope of Spurlock's film, the pitting of our personal responsibility to follow healthy diets against the corporate interests of fast food giants, stating “the choice for simplicity ignores the longstanding and complex web of complicity and causality that is deeply embedded within our cultural practice”. In spite of this Gilbert ultimately praises the film, concluding that real life actuation is the fundamental mark of success for a social exposé documentary and that Spurlock's singular focus against McDonald's influenced the company's decision to remove its “supersize” menu option.