McLibel: Documentary takes a big bite out of McDonald's fat ass.

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The American Prospect

 

McSued

 

A documentary about a 10-year legal battle against McDonald's is full

of drama, big butts, and heroism.

 

By Noy Thrupkaew

Web Exclusive: 06.10.05

 

 

 

McDonald's turned 50 this year. And, like many 50-year-olds, Ronald is

in the thick of a midlife crisis. Yet, in contrast with the

pencil-pushing, righteous-living ways of many who feel the urge to

indulge their inner adolescents, McDonald's has gotten all the play

out of the way. The Happy Meal lifestyle couldn't last forever, much

as the joy that comes from shoving a Big Mac down your craw and

following it with a haystack of fries turns inevitably bilious and

dyspeptic. So now McDonald's is on a bit of a health kick, pushing

salads and apple slices instead of slobbery sandwiches and snotty

apple pies.

 

Deprived of the interior tick of mortality that often occasions a

Porsche-buying spree, McDonald's found an unusual motivation for its

revamp: the one-two punch of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and

Morgan Spurlock's garish science-project of a documentary, Super Size

Me. After Schlosser exposed horrifying facts about the fast-food

industry (there's poo in the meat, dawg!) and Spurlock turned gassy

and grey after his month-long McFest Quest, McDonald's had to respond.

It rose from the grease fire, newly svelte and shapely -- and as slick

as ever.

 

Or maybe not, if McLibel has anything to do with it. Franny

Armstrong's new documentary takes a huge bite out of the attempt by

McDonald's to create a shiny new image for itself. Filmed over a

period of 10 years, McLibel tracks English activists Helen Steel and

Dave Morris as they battle libel charges that McDonald's filed against

them. Their alleged crime? Distributing leaflets that warned of the

restaurant's unfair work conditions, manipulative kid-focused

advertising, and its negative impacts on consumer health and the

environment.

 

McLibel starts out in the infotainment/propaganda vein now so familiar

to weary documentary viewers: Armstrong unreels background context ( " A

friendly clown persuaded children to love the company " ) in Star Wars

fashion, giant yellow type receding into black. Fussy British actors

play opposite Steel and Morris in court-scene reenactments -- very

McMasterpiece Theatre. But despite the bells and whistles, and

unapologetic partisanship, McLibel remains a complex and fascinating

film, with heroes all the more convincing for their unflashy devotion

to their cause.

 

Steel and Morris make an interesting contrast to Spurlock (who

structured Super Size Me so he could forever have his mug in the

camera). The " McLibel 2 " are stubbornly self-effacing, which allows

Armstrong time to supply viewers with gruesomely fascinating

information about the business, employment, advertising, and

manufacturing processes at McDonald's. Armstrong makes excellent use

of her experts, including a former Ronald McDonald clown who decided

that he couldn't live with himself any longer if he kept manipulating

children. Other highlights include footage from inside a McDonald's

chicken processing plant. Fuzzy, adorable chicks roll down conveyer

belts; unwanted ones are gassed -- some 1,000 per week.

 

The sight is horror-inducing, even for a callous, defiantly

carnivorous junk-food whore like me. Nearly as awful, despite their

familiarity, are the images of overweight diners, ferociously cankled,

massive boulder buttocks roiling underneath elastic waistbands. Who

are these feckless fatties? Does anyone ever recognize his or her own

giant heinie in one of these films? If the fast-food exposé becomes a

cinematic genre, the fat footage could become a mighty deterrent indeed.

 

While Armstrong walks viewers through the McLibel 2's attempt to

defend each of their pamphlet's points in court, she creates a damning

case against the corporation -- if a fuzzier picture of the U.K. libel

law that has led to the suit. Despite that deficiency, and the urge to

lionize its heroes, McLibel paints a deeply satisfying portrait of

what was at stake in Steel and Morris's case and how much it cost them

to wage England's longest legal battle with nothing but a grassroots

campaign for support. Morris, a single father, found less and less

time to spend with his son; Steel made do with wages earned from a

bartending job at a disco.

 

Neither Steel nor Morris see their struggle as a David-and-Goliath

scenario, in the conventional sense. " It's the public that are the

giants, " says Morris. In a way, he implies, he and Steel were just the

people's servants. It's a startlingly unique, and individual decision,

their insistence on their own quirky, stubborn ways in the face of the

crushing -- some might say homogenizing -- power of McDonald's. This

attitude carries through every moment they are onscreen as well. Steel

and Morris never showboat for the camera or detract from the issues

for the sake of their own self-aggrandizement.

 

I wish McLibel all the viewers it so amply deserves. But I also worry

that viewers might feel like they've already seen " the McDonald's

documentary " after viewing the comparatively lightweight and

self-indulgent Super Size Me. That would be a tremendous pity.

Although McLibel might not be as slick going down, it's a lot

healthier and more fulfilling in the end.

 

Noy Thrupkaew is a Prospect senior correspondent.

2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation:

Noy Thrupkaew, " McSued " , The American Prospect Online, Jun 10, 2005.

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