Morgan Spurlock’s new television show, 30 Days shows a lot of promise. The inaugural episode however, was fraught with problems. The premise of the show is that Spurlock (or someone else)will attempt each week to spend 30 days in someone else’s shoes. In this first installment, he spent 30 days living on minimum wage.
While I agree that it is tough to live on minimum wage, he takes the Michael Moore approach to making his point – hyperbole. Spurlock seems to go out of his way to great ‘crises.’ Him and his wife both had medical emergencies (I use the term very lightly) during the 30 days which totally destroyed his budget. He found a source for free furnishings, yet ignored that source later. He mostly overlooked the thousands of free sources of entertainment in favor of ones which cost money and thus contributed to his blown budget.
I still think the show has a ton of potential. I just wish he would take a more non-biased approach to the situations.
I don’t like him… and I’m not going to watch the show for this very reason. I *do* think he over exaggerates for effect, which of course he is free to do on television as an entertainer. For some people this is going to be as close to informational television that they are going to get and they are going to believe his exaggerations as gospel truth.
He did the same thing with Supersize Me. Here is an article by fast food king (in Houston at least) Ken Hoffman.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/hoffman/2593877
Same problems. Over exaggeration.