30 Days Season 1

Year: 2005

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Spurlock

Review

good tv series from morgan spurlock. the concept is basically the same as the one in super size me – do something for 30 days and see how it affects you. in this season he lives off minimum wage (or thereabouts) for 30 days and has other people try: anti-aging regimen, living like a muslim, living like a gay person, live off the grid, binge drinking like a college student. in most cases he has someone far outside of the subculture trying the thing out, so he has an anti-gay christian living in the castro district with a gay roommate, etc.

some episodes are better than others, but they all get to a common end point where people basically find greater understanding of something that they had judged prematurely. it’s the old saying about walking a mile in another man’s shoes. some of the methods or specifics in the show are suspect. for example, when morgan and his fiancé live on minimum wage they put down a deposit on a new place, get new furniture, etc. it’s as if they hadn’t existed before. they also don’t have any friends/family around which is probably atypical of most minimum wage earners. that said, it does get to the realities of moving on a meager wage, and it does force you to think about what it’s like for some people living that life.

in most cases, i can’t say that it was all that eye-opening for me. i go through most of my life trying to think about what it must be like for the people i judge or the people who may judge me. we can’t assume we know what it’s like to be on welfare or to be muslim or to be a hippie living off the grid. some of these things are bad or odd choices, but you can only judge so much without interviewing every individual from every different walk of life. hopefully more people watch the show in syndication or on netflix in order to truly appreciate this fact.

Watched on TV