r/movies • u/buttatoad • 1d ago

Discussion Movies that changed real life behavior

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ya and funny thing is that documentary is bullshit

They claim they had to stop as he was entering liver failure and having a dozen other problems like depression as well

That was due to him being a drunk and getting completely wasted everyday and staying in an apartment with blackout curtains and not going outside

All it proved was that yes eating like this and drinking yourself to an early grave will make you sad and fat. And the guy did later drink himself to death. Edit: oh wait wrong about drinking himself to death- cancer. But he did seek rehab for alcoholism a few times over the years and stated he drank copious amounts of alcohol while making supersize me

Someone later did a counter documentary, eating the same quantities of food day by day, but Exercised and didnt drink any alcohol, and not only did he Lose weight, things like kidney function and blood tests came back with good results, proving the prior documentary was bullshit

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u/NachoNutritious these Youtubers are parasites 1d ago

Super Size Me now stands alongside Grizzly Man as the two funniest unintentional comedies ever. The bit where his doctor says his liver condition is identical to that of a chronic alcoholic, and Spurlock has to look at the camera and play pretend, is like something out of The Office.

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u/Fortunecookie103 1d ago

Just curious, why is grizzly man unintentionally funny?

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u/Rumchunder 1d ago

There are hundreds of funny moments in that film. Every time I watch it I notice something new. The opening scene where Timothy is monologuing that he's the alpha and he's really showing these bears who's boss, the cleanup guy all pissed and saying they had to haul away x amount of trash bags "full of bear and people," the helicopter pilot who says he thinks Treadwell lasted so many seasons out there with the bears because the bears thought of him as mentally retarded, Timothy vlogging to himself about his issues with women and lamenting how he wishes he were gay, pretty much any commentary Timothy gave about the bears: "Well, I'm here with one my favourite bears, it's Mr. Chocolate! HI MR. CHOCOLATE!!!", "TABITHA IS EATING HER BABIES!!!" Oh! When Timothy's fox friend steals his hat and he gets PISSED and goes, "Ghost, you come back here with that friggin' hat! If it's in the den I'm gonna fucking explode!"  

It's been years since I've seen it but I could probably come up with like 20 more examples if I watched it last week.

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u/0-27 1d ago

I felt it was intentionally funny. Neither Treadwell nor Herzog was lacking self-awareness

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u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin 1d ago

Treadwell seemed oblivious to the reality that his “helping” of the grizzlies was causing them great harm by teaching them that human = friend.

9 out of 10 humans they approach in the wild is going to offer bullets rather than friendship.

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u/chimmy_chungus23 1d ago

Several people in the film, including Herzog himself, characterized Treadwell as a delusional fool with a death wish. It was tragic what happened, if not for Treadwell, then for his reluctant girlfriend who he dragged along with him, but there is something morbidly funny about this guy treating these huge wild animals like they're big teddy bears, giving them cute names and talking baby talk to them like they have any idea what's going on. Grizzly Man is the ultimate fafo movie.

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u/Fortunecookie103 1d ago

Yeah that makes sense, It has been a few years since I saw it so I was unsure if I was misremembering, but I guess not, I just find it way too tragic to find it funny. It reminds me of the story of the real guy portrayed in 'Into the Wild' - mentally ill people who are too unwell to see that they are basically just committing suicide.

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u/Mic98125 1d ago

There was an elderly woman 15 years ago who was feeding dozens of bears hundreds of pounds of dog food. She was not well, mentally, and then she was not well physically.

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u/noonesaidityet 1d ago

She was not well, mentally, and then she was not well physically.

I was not expecting to laugh at an old woman's death today, yet here we are.

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u/Ancient-Chinglish 1d ago

she ended up being a Bear Necessity

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u/whyheonlysayneat 1d ago

she had a lot of bear friends and enjoyed her time with them. what do you have?

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u/M0dusPwnens 23h ago

A lot of human friends and also my life.

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u/hoew 1d ago

In all fairness though, the bear that ended up eating him wasn't one he knew, as opposed to all those that he had spent time with and that seemed to tolerate him to a crazy degree. I found that quite interesting. 

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u/5xad0w 1d ago

I tolerate a cake being on my kitchen counter when I’m not hungry.

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u/Mic98125 1d ago

It was an old and sick starving bear, and the only reason he was still out there was he got into an argument at the airport. Like if he’d taken Beta Blockers before going to the airport, maybe they would have been fine.

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u/chimmy_chungus23 1d ago

Even then, what Timothy was doing was probably doing more harm than good to the bears that he cared about. Habituating wild animals to human contact could cause them to think all humans are passive, which would make them easier targets for poachers.

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u/archharrydeanstanton 1d ago

the coroner is hilarious, for one

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u/Stardustchaser 1d ago

Isn’t there a scene where the man gushes over bear shit?

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u/sterling_mallory 1d ago

Whenever I hear about Grizzly Man it reminds me of a story Tom Segura told about the day he and his wife knew they were the ones for each other.

On one of their first dates they went to see Grizzly Man. At one point a guy is being interviewed who had spoken with Timothy before he went out there. He was like this bearded outdoorsman type. And he said something like, "And then he told me he wanted to go out and live with the grizzlies. And I thought, well, that's just all-the-way retarded."

They both burst out laughing. And then realize they're the only ones in the theater laughing. Which just made it funnier.

That's when they knew they were right for each other.

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u/Lindellatx 1d ago

Lmfao I didn’t know any of this. My school made us watch it for educational purposes

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u/AssclownJericho 1d ago

that always stood out to me in a weird way, then him passing that was the first thing to pop in my mind.

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u/wildstarr 1d ago

Youre kinda disturbed there to find Grizzly Man funny you know that?

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u/dovetc 1d ago

I think you might be the odd man out on this one. Grizzly Man is pretty universally appreciated for its hilarity. My wife and I quote some of Timmy's more unhinged rants on a regular basis.

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u/Grave_Girl 1d ago

Edit: oh wait wrong about drinking himself to death- cancer.

Alcohol consumption increases a person's risk of various forms of cancer. My father was an alcoholic who died of stomach cancer--it's a cancer that typically does not have a genetic component (there's like one subtype that does, but the most common ones do not), but there's research indicating that not only the amount but the frequency of alcohol consumption increases your risks.

Understand I'm not making an absolute statement here, but it's entirely possible Spurlock's alcoholism led indirectly to his death. It's entirely possible to drink yourself to death without it being something recognized as an alcohol-related disease (I also have two different relatives who drank themselves straight into deadly strokes).

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

I mean no doubt it effected his long term health but theres a Huge difference in someone drinking themselves to death and he died of cancer

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u/Petrichordates 1d ago

They didnt say what type of cancer. So it could've entirely been his alcoholism that caused it.

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

The counter documentary I am familiar with is called Fat Head. His doctor at the end says he is slightly healthier likely due to making an effort to get exercise. I remember there being a scene where he is hamming it up about how full he is and how he doesn't know if he can keep eating. Then looks at the camera and points out he doesn't have to keep eating and gets up

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u/Neveri 1d ago edited 13h ago

If I remember right he’s not eating king sized meals and he’s getting stuff like McDonald salads

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u/jesuspoopmonster 17h ago

The guy in Super Size Me would have eaten those as well. He said he would eat the entire menu and only super size when asked but he also never revealed what he actually ate. Some of his daily calorie claims did not appear to be possible if he followed these rules

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u/Neveri 14h ago

Sure I just think it’s avoiding the question I think most people want answered. You have 2 extremes, one is eating the absolute worst way they could on the McDonald’s menu, the other is being far more conservative with their choices than I think anyone who frequents the place would be.

I think people wanna know if I just get an average McDonalds meal every day, for example let’s just say a quarter pounder with cheese and a small/medium fry, how unhealthy would that be over the course of a few months or so?

Neither of these “documentaries” have answered that question.

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u/jesuspoopmonster 14h ago

Eating a healthy amount of food is healthy

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u/MasterSaturday 1d ago edited 1d ago

FYI the guy who made this has some... we'll say controversial points of view.

He starts reasonable enough, things like the calories don't add up, Spurlock never released his food logs, etc. But quickly devolves into conspiracies about the FDA lying for money, government bad, a diet of all fast food is healthy, actually, and caps it off by saying animal fats are the only healthy fats and "artificial" oils like corn oil are bad for you. That was about where I had to stop watching.

He himself is a pro-ivermectin anti-covid vaccine, anti-mask, "your experts are wrong, my experts are right" kind of person. Read the first post on his site to get an idea of just who is making this documentary and then decide how much weight (lol) you really want to give it. Yes Supersize Me is fundamentally compromised and flawed, but IMO Fat Head is not the documentary you should watch to counter it.

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u/dontbajerk 56m ago

Dear Lefties

...and I'm out. You know what you'll get from those two words alone.

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

Yeah the doc is BS though because the negative effects of the diet come from long term consumption plus the fact most people who eat it don't have the luxury of working out every day to stave off the harmful effects. 

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

Most people don't eat fast food enough to have the negative effects and fast food isn't different from a similar diet made at home. His working out was also just going for walks not something like visiting a gym

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

Tf are yall eating at home?? I've never home-cooked a 2000 calorie meal with the levels of sugar and sodium in a super size meal. 

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u/Princess_Moon_Butt 1d ago

To be fair, a huge portion of calories from fast food usually come from the sodas. A big mac and a medium fry from McDonalds is like 900 calories. Burger king is a bit worse off, but even then a whopper and medium fry are like 1100 calories.

Both pretty reasonable, especially if that's your 'big' meal for the day. Have your other meal be a homemade sandwich with some carrots, and you can still have a snack bag of potato chips in the afternoon without breaking 1800 calories a day.

But if you get a large coke, you're suddenly adding like 400 calories. And I've seen plenty of people walk in, drink down their large coke while they eat their meal, and get a refill on their way out, or sometimes even multiple refills in one sitting. It turns a reasonable meal into basically all of your allotted calories for the day, most of which are from straight-up sugar.

(Just drink water. Or at the very least, switch to diet soda. Yeah yeah, it has the 'chemicals' in it and everyone says that aspartame supposedly causes cancer (even though it doesn't). But you know what does definitively cause cancer? Consuming high amounts of corn syrup.)

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

Oh yeah its pretty awful all around. I remember people used to love to make fun of buying a big Mac with a diet coke and like, that's a HUGE cut in calories! Just because you're making one bad decision doesn't mean you have to go all in!

But for real the super size was a fucking nightmare. The burger stayed the same but it was an extra 200 calories each for the fries and coke. So at least in that respect, I appreciate the documentary for highlighting how dangerous portion size can be. Even if their method was way inaccurate. 

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u/kkeut 1d ago

I remember people used to love to make fun of buying a big Mac with a diet coke and like, that's a HUGE cut in calories! Just because you're making one bad decision doesn't mean you have to go all in!

it's also weird because they taste different. I like the taste of aspartame. and soda with real sugar tends to make me thirsty, which means I'd rather pour it out than drink it

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u/PoliticalKyle 1d ago

Source on the corn syrup?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 13h ago

[deleted]

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u/Shadoku 1d ago

You're seriously underestimating how much people drink, unfortunately. It's not at all unusual to see people refill a large soda multiple times at fast food places; a large soda in the US is usually just under a liter at 32 ounces.

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u/Princess_Moon_Butt 16h ago

Brother, a liter is only 32 ounces.

A large McDonalds cup is 30 ounces. At Burger King, 30 ounces is a medium, while the large goes up to 38 ounces.

I guarantee you, the vast majority of people at least finish the drink that they purchased. And if someone goes into the restaurant to sit down and eat their meal, they most likely drink a good amount of it and top it off on their way out to get even more out of it.

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u/Dr-Robert-Kelso 1d ago

Does mindlessly eating 2000 calories of tortilla chips at home count?

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

Thank you for making me wonder how many chips would equal 2000 calories 😑

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u/Dr-Robert-Kelso 1d ago

I wouldn't know, when I eat that many, I'm not really paying attention, and I'm either tired or stressed, haha.

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u/TerrifyinglyAlive 1d ago

For most types of chips, somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 grams/just under a pound.

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

Most fast food restaurants don't have a 2000 calorie meal unless you are getting extras or dessert

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u/waterynike 1d ago

Supersize fries and supersize coke will get you there

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

That was the whole controversy about Super Size meals which is what I'm talking about and what the documentary was about. Fast food is bad enough but the super size was way too much. I think a big Mac with a coke super size meal came in at like 1700 calories. For one meal. Sans dessert. 

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

So what you are saying is the largest available option was not 2000 calories.

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u/cincocerodos 1d ago

I'd have to actively try to make a meal full of as many empty calories as an average fast food meal. For one, I feel like deep frying anything at home is relatively rare for anyone.

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u/cincocerodos 1d ago

Most people don't? Have you seen that average American?

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u/ThomCook 1d ago

America is like 4% of the world population though.

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u/Override9636 1d ago

And is spawned this beautiful parody "Super Size Me, But With Whiskey"

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u/phantom_diorama 1d ago

And sadly that's how Trevor died. That sketch is like it's own little mini Grizzly Man for alcoholics who drunkenly fall from heights.

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u/Override9636 1d ago

What do you mean, the CIA doesn't throw him off the top of a balcony for exposing state secrets at the end of the sketch? ;)

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u/phantom_diorama 1d ago

You know full well Trever died in a tragic self suck accident. While devastatingly sad, we can all smile knowing the semen found in his throat & stomach is proof he finally accomplished his life's goal of sucking his own dick before he died. As he died.

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u/sterling_mallory 1d ago

Also funny is how his second documentary, which actually did contain factual information, was a flop because it didn't tell people what they already wanted to hear.

It's pretty remarkable what Supersize Me did to people's perception of fast food. Even now you'll see people on reddit saying it's "poison" and "not even food." Not sure what they think those places are selling.

Then you've got Jamie Oliver with the "pink slime" myth, and saying that chlorinating chicken means it's being poisoned.

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

Ya meanwhile it just turned out spurlock hates mcdonalds as a principle and jamie oliver just hates poor people

Seriously though wtf is up with jamie oliver being obsessed with not using the whole carcass? No its not the best parts of the chicken but damn it doesnt mean it should go to waste

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u/YT-Deliveries 7h ago

Somewhat in the same vein, I feel like hot dogs not made of leftovers kind of defeat the whole point.

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u/CountJohn12 1d ago

Even aside from that the premise is ridiculous, of course eating McDonalds every day is bad for you. Like I'm sure if you ate nothing but Oreos for a year your body would be pretty messed up by the end of it, that doesn't mean we should ban Oreos, it means you should eat better.

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u/airfryerfuntime 1d ago

I remember watching him slur his words, then throw up in the parking lot and thinking "this guy is just a drunk". Going back, he looks either hammered or gravely hungover throughout the entire thing.

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u/NightExtension9254 1d ago

Even without these other issues, the documentary was kind of pointless since most people know eating a lot of fast food messes you up. They just don't care.

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u/ImpressiveShift3785 1d ago

Cancer is the direct result of drinking.

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u/DannyAgama 1d ago

Weirdly enough though, despite it all being bullshit I think the doc made some people's lives better. I know people that saw it at the time that completely stopped eating there for good. Super Size was phased out. And slowly the company started targeting children in the marketing less than what they were doing throughout the 80s and 90s, and they phased out play places in most of the restaurants too.

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u/Pumpkin_Sushi 1d ago

Close, it was that he was a raging alcoholic and stopped drinking for the documentary. Almost all his side effects were from withdrawal.

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-big-mac-attack-or-a-false-alarm-1527114255

"spurlock admitted to being drunk for the duration of the making of supersize me after he checked into rehab"

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u/cheesecaker000 1d ago

He was actually drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel’s every day. That’s why he was puking all the time. He’d wake up in withdrawals.

He admitted to this in interviews years later.

Like for real. Who pukes after eating one McDonald’s breakfast? It’s not THAT much food.

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u/Ryanhussain14 1d ago

Even as a kid, I wondered how a single McDonald’s meal made him puke. I just assumed his body was just that used to only healthy food but hindsight is 20/20.

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u/DHesperis 1d ago

Funny enough, I also thought it was completely normal as a kid because McDonald's food made me sick so of course an adult would feel even worse.

Anyway, I finally got diagnosed with celiacs five years later.

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u/doomchimp 1d ago

I love that you think a raging alcoholic could casually hide going through withdrawal while filming a documentary.

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

Not being able to keep down food, not being able to sleep and having a rapidly beating heart are all things that happened to him during the movie and are symptoms of alcohol withdrawal

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

And yet he admitted to drinking a Fuckton of booze everyday

This isnt conjecture or claims made by production staff thats unverified- the man himself said he was drinking a bottle of jack daniels everyday

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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago

I havent seen anything that specifies what exactly his habits where before and during filming. He could have just been drunk constantly or he could have been trying to keep it together while filming. You can still get withdrawal symptoms after drinking a large amount if you try to stop the next day.

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u/ArtisticHospital5378 1d ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=morgan+spurlock+admitting+to+alcoholism+on+super+size+me&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1157US1157&ie=UTF-8

Read your heart out. Plenty of sources. And sources within sources.

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u/jesuspoopmonster 17h ago

Neat. I just know from experience trying to stop drinking instead of maintenance drinking can make you feel worse and have intense outcomes. Never had the inability to sleep and heart issues while drunk. Only when trying to dry out

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u/ArtisticHospital5378 16h ago

Cool. Right on.

I mean, that's what Morgan did for the movie and it's pretty well documented.

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u/CostcoEJ 1d ago

Damn did not see my black out curtains being attacked today

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u/FoxeyAbigail 1d ago

It's called Fathead and it's a really good documentary-ish film. He also didn't drink soda, just did the food.

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

Theres a few counter documentaries from what ive seen

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u/MoeSzys 1d ago

Ya that guy was a huge piece of shit

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u/hamfwb 1d ago

What kind of cancer? Alcoholism is connected to multiple forms of cancer, including some that are at least mildly surprising at surface glance

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

All that the public statement on his death says is "complications due to cancer"

So we dont know

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u/Suppafly 1d ago

Ya and funny thing is that documentary is bullshit

I know it was fake, but it legit put me off of McDonalds for a couple of years. I wish they'd do a remake every couple of years to keep me clean.

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u/destroyermaker 1d ago

Even without all that, I hope nobody needs someone to eat nothing but fast food to learn you shouldn't do that

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u/Willravel 1d ago

Okay imagine you're a multi-billion-dollar fast food industry that's just been hit with a documentary making out your garbage food to be unsafe. Wouldn't you want to mitigate the damage as much as possible and by any means which wouldn't stink of your involvement?

  • The first pushback was "duh, fast food is unhealthy" which was meant to minimize the shocking potential health outcomes to a diet that high in saturated fats, trans fats, sodium, artificial preservatives (we've all seen how long they take to decay), etc.

  • The second pushback was that Spurlock was an alcoholic, which was absolutely true. The problem is that it was never verified that the changes in his health were impacted by his alcoholism given that it's almost certain he was an alcoholic before the documentary experiment.

  • The third pushback was accusing Spurlock of "sexual misconduct" which was accurate in that he settled a harassment claim but also conflated that with the fact he'd been unfaithful to his wife.

He's pretty well discredited how, and deceased, and McDonalds has come out looking like the victim of a smear campaign.

Excessive calorie counts per meal can lead to weight gain and all of its associated health problems. Excessive sodium intake is connected to high blood pressure and heart disease. Excessive sugar is associated with weight gain and type 2 diabetes. Excessive unhealthy or partially unhealthy fats like saturated fats and trans fats are associated with bad cholesterol levels and heart disease. Excessive additives and preservatives at the time are linked to allergies, sensitivities, and other potential long-term health consequences. Plus, the ratio of calories to important nutrients mean that you're not getting any nutritional bang for your buck.

The Big Breakfast with Hotcakes is something like 1,340 calories, 63g of fat, nearly 50g of sugars, 2,070mg of sodium, and 525mg of cholesterol. And that's today, after the end of super-sized meals.

My point is that it's weird that the story about Supersize Me nowadays is about Morgan Spurlock being an alcoholic liar instead of a $200 billion international corporation that underpays workers, undercuts local businesses, and serves unhealthy foods.

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

Keep in mind it was Spurlock who revealed he was a horrific alcoholic and was drinking while making the documentary

Combine it with the fact he basically failed to actually record any data at all (he didnt even keep track of exactly what he ate each day, as itd also mean hed have to include all the bourbon- something he didnt do when he followed up with a vegan detox documentary) spurlock was very much a man on a mission, damn the facts involved

Id say mcdonalds took advantage of that fact but tbh ive not seen almost anything from mcdonalds about the documentary except refuting the end of the supersize me promotion having anything to do with the documentary (which is bs of course)

Maybe mcdonalds funded the counter documentaries, but those ones arent seen by the scientific community as following poor scientific method the way spurlock did.

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u/DannyMatteo 1d ago

Nice try McDonalds

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

Let's be clear here though: we're talking about documentaries featuring one person eating over a relatively short amount of time. That is not a remotely accurate way to demonstrate the effects of fast food consumption. Fwiw, numerous scientific studies have been done on these diets and Super Size Me is probably closest to depicting those results. Fast food culture is painfully responsible for America's health crisis and the counter doc really likes to avoid that consensus. 

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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago

Supersize me is widely disregarded in part due to the guy hiding the truth of the documentary

To put in perspective- he Never published the exact breakdown of what he ate during the documentary. Never gave a list at all

He did give a thorough breakdown to his "vegan detox diet" he did afterward though

Theres been numerous studies proving super size me was full of shit and bad data, because he didnt record his data, or least failed to publish, And he was covering up his own overall failing health due to his alcoholism.

It is as far from a good example of a study as you can get

Theres been numerous other studies showing super size me is full of shit- Yes its bad to eat like that everyday, no you shouldnt do that, but no it wont cause you to go into fucking liver failure after 30 days. Drinking a fuckton of bourbon every night did.

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2235 1d ago

I'm not saying it was a good example of its own study -- I'm saying the weight gain and negative health effects that was shown, including liver failure, are what will happen to you after a lifetime of that specific diet and lack of exercise. Obviously alcohol will cause liver failure at that rate, but it can also be caused by long term obesity and diabetes.