Performative documentary

Super Size Me, Roger and Me and the performative documentary mode: an analysis Ana Luiza Augusto

What John Grierson once defined as the creative treatment of actuality is a genre that never seems to age – perhaps because it never actually does. The possibilities are endless, in every aspect. When a genre basically comports anything about life and society, nothing less than that could be expected. I dare say the name sounds too archival for how imaginative and artistic it can be. Documentary.

In his book Introduction to Documentary (2010), Bill Nichols established a categorisation of the genre that has become vastly used in Film studies. According to him, there are basic six modes of documentary: expository, poetic, observational, reflexive, participatory and performative, the latter being the focus of this essay.

The performative documentary mode took shape between the 1980s and 1990s, and ‘took strongest roots among these groups whose sense of commonality had grown (…) as a result of an identity politics that affirmed the relative autonomy and social distinctiveness of marginalised groups’ (Nichols, 2010: p. 101). Films belonging to such mode seek to answer questions about what is knowledge and where is comes from and make use of subjectivity as they anchor in a particular individual, the filmmaker, going from particular to collective (Nichols, 2010: p. 133).

In

performative documentaries, filmmakers are not outsider conveyers of an undeniable truth; they are participants, sharing rather than teaching reality, as they primarily

address the audience ‘emotionally and expressively, rather than pointing us to the factual world we hold in common’ (Nichols, 2010: p. 157).

The performative mode aims for an engagement level with the audience that turns out to expose its own fragilities and a different notion of truth than observed in other modes. It ‘acknowledges the construction and artificiality of even the non-fiction film’ (Bruzzi, 2000: p. 154). Concerning the terminology, a very clarifying explanation if found in John Arthur Little’s thesis ‘The Power and potential of performative documentary film’ (2007):

Performative documentary underscores a paradox that is troubling for traditionalists - the marriage of performance to document. One draws attention to itself, the other to what it represents. One is predominantly poetic and evocative, while the other is primarily evidential and referential, designed to allow the viewer to assemble meaning of historical events through the collected evocations, icons, impressions, intimations and implications contained within the film. (Little, 2007: p. 23)

In order to explore the concept of the performative documentary mode in a practical way, I analysed two films that are broadly accepted and belonging to the performative group, Roger and Me and Super Size Me. Both are successful American productions nominated and winner of prizes in festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival. Their domestic total box office registers $6,706,368 for Roger and Me and $11,536,423 for Super Size Me.

Roger and Me is a documentary by American filmmaker Michael Moore, filmed over the course of two years and released in 1989. The plot centres around General Motors’ closure of their plant in Flint, Michigan, announced in the mid-80s, as part of the plan of moving their plants from the United States to Mexico. After a period working in San Francisco, California, Moore returns to Flint, his hometown, just as their citizens receive the news that 30 thousand jobs are soon to be lost. Moore then spends the next two years trying to get an interview with General Motors’ CEO Roger Smith – which explains the title the gave to the documentary.

During his journey, as he waits for phone calls and letters from Mr. Smith’s personal assistants (which that never arrive), the filmmaker captures the changes his town is experiencing and the challenges people from Flint have to undergo. He witnesses many home evictions of former GM workers that now, unemployed, no longer have means to pay for their rent, interviews people as they leave the plant and shows home some of the citizens are trying to pursue new jobs, as well as portraying the doubtful attempts from authorities to save the city by making of it a touristic location and building leisure sites that, as Moore shows, imitates the panis et circenses strategy created by the Roman empire centuries ago, but still so shamefully effective. On the other hand of desperation and loss, Flint’s high society continues to play golf and hold their Great Gatsby annual party, whilst lobbyists fiercely defend the plant closure and allege that there is work available, and people just need to roll up their sleeves and look for it – the answer to the questions ‘where’ and ‘how’, though, remain missing.

Until these days, Flint has never been able to fully recover from the sudden impact.

The criminality rise that followed GM’s closure and which Roger and Me denounces, for example, led Flint to be known as the United States’ most dangerous city.

As in all of Michael Moore’s films, his presence is completely distinguishable in Roger and Me. Even when he is not visible in front of the camera, his voice is there, playing a role that goes beyond narrating: the filmmaker in this case is part of his film. Such characteristic is what defines a performative documentary the most. In Roger and Me, though, Moore’s participation trespasses the intentional immersion on a subject of common interest, as he does in Farenheit 9/11 (2004), for example. The main difference is that his relation with what Roger and Me deals with is so personal that it becomes autobiographical at some points. Flint is his hometown, GM is the place where his family members have worked for generations, and what he has to witness is the struggle of his own people. The autobiographical aspect is not subject to careful interpretation, though. Actually, he presents himself and brings up information and situations of his childhood in the beginning of the film.

Differently from the formality expected of most television documentaries, Roger and Me carries a satirical language that has become a trademark of Michael Moore, with the montage following such style. A recurrent technique of his, for example is contrasting score and image to create irony. At around 8 minutes of the film, the audience hears a joyful song as Moore explains GM CEO’s plan to close plants in the US and open new ones in Mexico to take advantage of the neighbour country’s low salaries and fragile labour laws to industry workers, leaving 30 thousand people unemployed without any further explanation or support. The music continues as he finishes with a brief laugh followed by the comment ‘Roger Smith was a true genius’.

Released in 2004, Super Size Me is American filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s first documentary, and one of his most successful works so far. After watching in the news

that two American teenagers are suing Mc Donald’s for their physical condition (severe obesity and diseases related to being overweight), Spurlock has the idea that months later made him famous worldwide: for 30 days, he will only eat Mc Donald’s food. Some of the rules he establishes for his own experiment are that he is not allowed to eat anything Mc Donald’s doesn’t sell (water included), that he has to have three meals a day from the fast food chain, try everything from their menu at least once over the course of 30 days and buy the ‘super size’, the largest meal size, whenever it’s offered to him – this last rule becoming the title of his project.

Before embarking on his Mc Donald’s journey, Spurlock is tested by a general practitioner, a cardiologist and an endocrinologist that will follow the changes his body and health undergo during the experiment. A nutritionist and an exercise physiologist are also consulted, and together with the doctors and several examinations, the unanimous stated sentence is that Morgan has an outstanding health condition. As we watch that change day after day, the filmmaker explores through interviews with specialists the drama of the obesity epidemic in the United States – which is officially the ‘heaviest’ country in the world, with Texas being the state with the largest number of obese people. For Morgan personally, the result is a body that went from outstandingly healthy to a deteriorating stage with alarming alterations shown in his blood tests – not to mention depression, heart palpitations, fatigue, headaches and other problems. But socially, the film is undeniably effective in denouncing the destructive power that fast-foods carry, and how the advertisement industry goes to every possible extent to prevent that from being openly discussed and therefore affecting their reach and profit.

In Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock is a constant presence on the screen. From a number of scenes in the film, it is clear that at times it’s only him with the camera, talking directly to the lenses that become the eyes of the audience. It could be compared to a video diary or a reality show if it weren’t for the many interviews and graphs in the film. IMDB classifies it as a documentary, as a comedy and also as a drama. As Spurlock performs his experiment on himself, he shares every detail with the audience – from his stomach reactions to his sex life. A sense of identification that is very characteristic of performative documentaries is created. Making himself vulnerable is a strong way of generating the emotional impact propose to do.

If Michael Moore’s Roger and Me features the filmmaker portraying the reality of a place where his family, friends and himself belong and the impact of a given situation in the life of his hometown, in Super Size Me Morgan Spurlock actually creates a situation in order to publicise a matter that he considers to be of common interest. The difference here, in other words, is that the former plays along the lines of a setting that does not depend on the filmmaker or the film proposal. The plant closure, evictions, job losses, rise in crime and degradation of the city would have happened even if Michael Moore decided not to make a film. One may argue that the same is valid for the obesity epidemic in Super Size Me, that with or without Spurlock’s film, the USA has been ranked the most obese country in the world and that frequent fast-food consumption causes serious damages to health. Since such subject is not based on an event (but rather on a social condition), the author decided to explore the matter by setting up an experiment that would drive the plot and open space for the discussion.

Spurlock’s subjection to a personal experiment for a social cause in contrast to Moore’s witnessing of a situation can also be analysed from the social impact point of view. Because of the different natures of their themes, the effects of the films are also unalike. Whereas the most of action Roger and Me can get from the audience is indignation because of GM’s injustice, Super Size Me is capable of awakening in the audience the desire to do something, anything. Obesity epidemic and exaggerated fast-food consumption are part of a changeable reality. And if my personal experience counts for a simple exemplification, I do admit that as the credits rolled up, my first desire was to find the nearest treadmill and promise myself I will never eat at Mc Donald’s again. If that momentary thought has future impacts, it is unpredictable right now, but the fact is that the film provoked the yearning for a change of habits.

Such difference in impact scope does not make of Super Size Me a more performative film than Roger and Me, or vice-versa. The distinction falls to reasons related to temporality, location and eventuality versus contrast to a stagnated condition. In addition to that, it has to be pointed out, that performative documentaries are not necessarily committed to promoting changes. On the other hand, again it is true that the empathy created from the stressing of ‘subjective aspects of a classically objective discourse’ (Nichols, 2010, p. 138) are undeniably powerful to drive the audience’s minds towards the filmmaker’s point of view. Because of the their very personal language, addressing the audience informally and in first person, it’s easy for the spectator to find identification and surrender to the film flow. An example of that is in the final moments of Spurlock’s film. As he wraps up his commentary explaining how big corporations and fast-food chains are interested in profiting more than they

care about their customers’ health, he hands the torch to the audience: ‘If this evergrowing paradigm is going to shift, it’s up to you’.

Another important aspect of performative documentaries that is very clear in both films under analysis is that, in this mode, the fragility and artificiality of the documentary genre is explored rather than covered up. Both Moore and Spurlock experience seatbacks and unpredicted situations that are not hidden, disguised or edited out. Michael Moore’s ultimate goal, for example, was to interview Roger Smith – which never happened. Morgan Spurlock was informed the health centre he was attending was shut down before his experiment was concluded. Performative documentaries accept and play along with their own fragilities. And for Super Size Me and Roger and Me, those are not only in terms of production, but also content and narrative. In a very surreal prospect, what if the city of Flint had no problems in finding a solution to make up for the plant closure? It should remarked that he was filming as the events were unfolding, and could have been wrong about his predictions. And for Spurlock’s film, in a dramatic outlook, what if he had died?

Even though the documentaries in question deal with completely different themes, it’s undeniable that the performative mode perfectly suits Moore’s and Spurlock’s plot.

Nevertheless, characteristics of other modes can be observed in both films. They are reflexive in the sense that there is awareness of the process; participatory because the filmmakers are part of the plot; and expository with the recurrent use of the voice of god narrative style. The plurality of modes is not only possible, but also a very common occurrence in documentaries. Still then, the affectation of the language, present subjectivity of the filmmaker, focus on emotional and social impact are strong

characteristics that define Super Size Me and Roger and Me as documentaries that belong to and represent mostly the performative mode, besides the interest in the real rather than the beautiful – or Morgan Spurlock wouldn’t film himself vomiting from a car window or having a rectal examination.

Spontaneity is perhaps the most appropriate word of order for Roger and Me, Super Size Me and their authors. As the performative mode opens the doors for a personal approach with the audience, it seems that serious matters suddenly become so much more understandable. The sense of proximity that comes from it is also remarkable.

You may have never lived in Flint or undergone obesity problems, but when it comes to humane matters, there is always a way it can relate – and films Super Size Me and Roger and Me are example of how documentaries can be powerful empathy bridges and awareness builders.

Filmography

Roger and Me, (1989) Directed by Moore, M., [Film] USA Super Size Me, (2004) Directed by Spurlock, M., [Film] USA

Bibliography

Bruzzi, S., (2000) New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 99-175.

Fuchs, E. and Sterbenz, C., (2013) How Flint, Michigan Became The Most Dangerous City In America, available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-flint-michigandangerous-2013-6#ixzz2phRj5oJY (accessed: 05/01/2014) Little, J. A., (2007) The Power and potential of performative documentary film, Master

Thesis

Essay,

Montana

State

University.

Available

at:

http://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/1741/LittleJ0507.pdf?sequ ence=1 Nichols, B., (2010) Introduction to Documentary, 2nd Ed., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 100-138 ‘Roger and Me’, IMDB. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/ (accessed: 05/01/2014) ‘Super Size Me’, IMDB. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/ (accessed: 05/01/2014)