28 November 2007
Reality Program: 30 Days: by Morgan Spurlock
I rented the DVD of Morgan Spurlock's reality program titled "30 Days." People in the program experience different worlds including film producer Spurlock himself. He is tall and looks like cock bird.
I first know him by the film "Supersize me." The show described his experience of eating only McDonald's hamburgers for 30 days. He described the obessity issue of America. How McDonald made Americans so fat and unhealthy.
After the success of this film, he then made the documentary programs with the same rule, that is people experience different worlds for 30 days.
There are 3 programs I liked.
1. Morgan and his girlfriend decided to live their lives by minimum wage. They learned minimum wage cannot support standard level of lives and the law should be amended to increase the minimum wage level. If you would be so poor that you cannot even afford to see a doctor.
2. An atheist woman lived in dedicated Christian family's home. There are not so many atheists in America, whereas in my country most people are. Dedicated Buhdists, Christians and other believers are minority and sometimes regarded as weird. In the U.S. Chrisitanity has strong influence in life. Christians cannot understand atheist way of living. Atheists feel oppressed in America. Kind of surprising to us, because America is a new country, why is it so religious?
3. The most impressive program, Cuban immigrant American who came to the U.S. legally when he was a child lived with illegal immigrants family. The Cuban man hates illegal immigrants and supports the governments tougher measure on the illegal immigrants. The family was just normal and happy loving people. The oldest girl was brilliant and thinking about going to the college. It was a big surprise to know that illegal immigrant girl could go to high school and got good grades and participate in golf tournament. Her school teacher supported her goals to achieve. She applied for Princeton and local college.
When I was in California, during 1990's, there was a referendum named Proposition 187, that bans providing services to illegal immigrants. There was a big anti-immigrants movement going on. I kind of understood people's anger towards illegal immigrants. They did not come to the U.S. legally. I never consider them good citizens.
In the program, the Cuban man went to Mexico to meet the relatives of the illegal immigrants family. Where they used to live was like rubble, I could understand why millions of Mexicans crossed the border just like the Cuban man did.
Blaming them cannot really solve this problem. This is the issue of global economy.
The program may include some kind of set-ups just like other documentary shows. But you can learn the importance of learning different worlds by real experiences.
Thank you, Morgan.
20:25 Posted in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: Documentary, religion, Immigration