Dead at 53, cancer. Somewhat dubious personal life, but I absolutely loved his films. Supersize Me is a work of absolute genius.
I enjoyed Supersize Me at the time but I think it was basically fraudulent, the amount of weight he claimed to have put on didn't stand up to any scrutiny and the claimed results have never been replicated in follow up studies.
It was still an excellent eye-opener into the state of American and indeed worldwide eating habits. A worthy companion piece to the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.
Is that actually true? He certainly admitted to paying off a female employee to keep shtum about sexual harassment allegations, plus some unsubstantiated rape allegations did the rounds which he denied, and went as far as to give his side of the events. Please don't think I'm remotely sticking up for sexual abusers - I'm really not. But I'm also a strong believer that facts should take precedence over misinformation and exaggeration. As well as being a brilliantly gifted film maker, Spurlock was clearly, and by his own admission, a deeply flawed individual. But that doesn't make him a rapist, at least not according to the information we currently have at our disposal.
He admitted that a woman pushed him off her and told her she didn't want sex, he then had sex with her and she was crying. But he thought he was "comforting her" while she believed she was being raped. On the me too movement he admitted he was part of the problem. The man was a piece of **** and being talented to make a few films doesn't trump that in my opinion.
I didn't know the full details tbh. I certainly don't think being a great film maker negates being a sexual predator. But I can also still appreciate his films in spite of that. I certainly understand why others wouldn't.
One could say the same about Gary Glitter. Paedophile who recorded some songs which a lot of people liked...
“We began fooling around, she pushed me off, then we laid in the bed and talked and laughed some more, and then began fooling around again. We took off our clothes. She said she didn’t want to have sex, so we laid together, and talked, and kissed, and laughed, and then we started having sex.” When the woman then started to cry Spurlock said that he “didn’t know what to do. We stopped having sex and I rolled beside her. I tried to comfort her. To make her feel better. I thought I was doing ok, I believed she was feeling better. She believed she was raped.” That was from the guardian in 2017, a quote from the man himself. It does make me 'laugh', that he only decided to own up when the me-too movement was in full swing, did he think he'd be better off coming froward before being found out? Idiot. The sexual misconduct one was apparently him calling a female worker sexy pants and not realising he shouldn't have been. Perhaps he had a 12 year old mind?
Supersize Me where he showed the damaging effects of fast food on the liver, much to the doctor's surprise, but forgot to mention he was an alcoholic. By all accounts the whole film was fake, which negates any good it did.
