‘Super Size Me’ director Morgan Spurlock has died at the age of 53

NEW YORK (AP) — Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most famous work skewered American food and diets and who notably ate alone at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died. He was 53.

Spurlock died Thursday in New York from complications of cancer, according to a statement from his family released Friday.

“It was a sad day as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who worked with him on several projects, said in the statement. “Morgan has given so much through his art, ideas and generosity. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I am so proud that I had the opportunity to work with him.”

Spurlock made a splash in 2004 with his groundbreaking film ‘Super Size Me’, which was nominated for an Academy Award. The film captured the damaging physical and psychological effects of Spurlock eating nothing but McDonald’s food for thirty days. He gained about 25 pounds, saw a spike in his cholesterol and lost his sex drive.

“Everything is bigger in America,” he said in the film. “We have the biggest cars, the biggest houses, the biggest companies, the biggest food and finally, the biggest people.”

In one scene, Spurlock showed children a photo of George Washington and no one recognized the Founding Father. But they all knew the Wendy’s and McDonald’s mascots.

He Returned 2019 with “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” – a sober look at an industry that processes 9 billion animals per year in America. He focused on two issues: chicken farmers trapped in a peculiar financial system and fast-food chains’ attempt to trick customers into thinking they are eating healthier.

“We are at a great moment in history from a consumer perspective where consumers are starting to have more and more power,” he told The Associated Press in 2019. “It’s not about returns for shareholders. It’s about returns for the consumer.”

Spurlock was a gonzo filmmaker who focused on the bizarre and ridiculous. His stylistic touches include punchy graphics and fun music, blending a Michael Moore-esque camera-in-your-face style with his own sense of humor and pathos.

“I wanted to be able to lean on the serious moments. I wanted to be able to breathe in the moments of levity. We want to give you permission to laugh in the places where it’s really hard to laugh,” he told the AP.

After exposing the fast food and chicken industries, there was an explosion in restaurants emphasizing freshness, artisanal methods, farm-to-table goodness and ethically sourced ingredients. But nutritionally, not much had changed.

“There has been a huge shift and people say to me, ‘Has the food become healthier now?’ And I say, ‘Well, the marketing certainly did that,'” he said.

Not all of his work was about food. Spurlock made documentaries about it the boy band One Direction and the nerds and fanboys at Comic-Con. One of his films was about life behind bars at the Henrico County Jail in Virginia.

With ‘Where in the world is Osama bin Laden?’ from 2008 Spurlock went on a worldwide search for the leader of Al-Qaeda, who was assassinated in 2011. In “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” Spurlock addressed questions about product placement, marketing and advertising.

“Being aware is half the battle, I think. It’s great to literally always know when you’re being marketed,” Spurlock told AP at the time. “A lot of people don’t realize it. They can no longer see the forest for the trees.”

“Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” was set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, but was shelved at the height of the #MeToo movement when Spurlock came forward to detail his own history of sexual misconduct.

He admitted that he had been accused of rape while in college and that he had settled a sexual harassment case with a female assistant. He also admitted to cheating on numerous partners. “I am part of the problem,” he wrote.

“For me, there was a moment of realization – as someone who tells the truth and someone who has made it a point to try to do the right thing – of realizing that I could do better in my own life. We have to be able to admit that we were wrong,” he told the AP.

Spurlock grew up in Beckley, West Virginia. His mother was an English teacher and he remembered correcting his work with a red pen.

He is survived by two sons: Laken and Kallen; his mother Phyllis Spurlock; father Ben; brothers Craig and Barry; and former spouses Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the mothers of his children.