MORGAN SPURLOCK: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD

Selling Out

He’s tackled burger spruiking clowns, has tried to locate one of the world’s most feared terrorists and in 2011, documentary film marker Morgan Spurlock is turning his attention to the murky world of advertising. Determined to shine a light on the widespread practice of product placement in films and on television, and inform consumers about how they’re being sneakily marketed to, Spurlock came up with the concept for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, a documentary about advertising and product placement, fully funded by sponsors.

“I live in New York City and you can’t leave your apartment without someone trying to sell you something. Marketing and advertising it ubiquitous in the city,” Spurlock begins when asked why he decided to create The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

“It came from the idea of this loss of sacred space, there’s practically nowhere you can go where nobody is trying to push something on you, combined with the fact that I work in an industry which is completely co-opted by marketing and advertising in films and television shows. So I said ‘why don’t we make a film which explores this phenomenon, using films as the jumping off point, and actually get it paid for by people who do product placement and advertising?’.”

And make a film he did, compromising his art and reputation as a documentary maker in the process.

“Hopefully the irony isn’t lost on people,” he laughs when questioned about how it felt to ‘sell out’. “I’m selling a film that’s hopefully going to make you think about how you’re sold things everyday.

“The biggest thing is that people just don’t realise the level of which they’re being marketed to and how much of that marketing is influencing what we get to see and hear. There are people who are forcing marketing and advertising messages into content now. One of the things that I think The Greatest Movie does is that after you see this film, you don’t look at a Hollywood film the same way again. There’s a real awakening that happens. Being armed with that type of awareness is one of the greatest tools you can have to prepare yourself for this.”

Across the globe, under handed product placement has become a common practice, infiltrating films, TV, media and even schools in America, as Spurlock point out in his latest documentary.

“It’s really sickening. People say all the time ‘I’m a capitalist, this is a free market system, I should be able to do whatever I want’ and I agree to a point but schools are one of those places where there should not be advertising and there should not be marketing. There’s a line that one girl said to me that I thought was brilliant and eloquent – ‘schools should teach you how to think, not what to think’. Schools should be free from corporate influence and advertising manipulation. Brand association shouldn’t be married to an education.”

Having caused quite a stir when he went after corporate giant McDonalds in 2004 with Super Size Me, Spurlock found it near impossible to convince brands to come on board as sponsors for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

“It was very difficult. I called over 600 companies, probably about 650 to ask them to sponsor the film and we had 15 say yes going into Sundance and another seven came on to make it 22 by the time the film came out. People would call back because of the success of Super Size Me and other projects and others would say no based on the success of Super Size Me and other projects. They were like ‘oh you’re that guy? I just wanted to call back and say no’.”

Though his previous work did hamper his efforts to find sponsors for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Spurlock doesn’t regret anything, and looks back fondly on the ramifications that Super Size Me had on the fast food biz.

“I love the effect Super Size Me had on the industry but I love the effect it had on individuals even more. I love that parents came out of that movie saying ‘I’m going to cook at home now’. People empowered themselves by saying ‘I’m going to eat less fast food; I’m going to go once a week rather than four times a week’. Schools said ‘we’re going to change what we’re feeding these kids’. Doctors said ‘I’m going to prescribe this movie to my patients’. On top of that there were countless people who after the film came out, would stop me and pull a picture out of their wallet and show me a picture of them like 200 pounds earlier. They would say things like ‘I saw your film and it changed my life. This was me 400 pounds ago’. It was a remarkable thing. There are things in this film [The Greatest Movie Ever Sold] that stay with you. The products that we market in the film stay with audiences, which brings out a conflict in them when they see other products, and that conflict is a good thing to happen internally because it makes you question why you buy. It will ultimately make people more conscious consumers.”

_EMMA BERGMEIER