The Couch Potato’s Guide to a Balanced Diet

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

It’s hardly a secret that we live in a culture of excess. Before the pandemic, Americans could—and did—go to a veritable (or actual) buffet of All-You-Can-Eat deals at Olive Garden, Sizzler, Old Country Buffet, Pizza Ranch, and many others—and I’m sure we’ll all be back bellying up to the food bar when the all-clear sounds. Super-sized meals are still available at McDonalds. The mega Slurpee, a whopping 40-ounce drink, is only about $3.00 at your local 7/11. A very popular culinary fad has seen American fall in love with the turducken, a dish in which a boneless chicken is stuffed inside a duck which is stuffed inside a turkey. 

Not surprisingly, the obesity rate in this country is at an all-time high. According to a 2017-2018 report from the CDC, fully 42.5% of adults over twenty are obese and 73.6% of this group are considered overweight.

This gluttony is not restricted solely to the dinner table—or the snack bar, the deli, the food truck, the pantry, or a box from Amazon. The mentality of excess has also leaked into various parts of our culture, including the movies. 

The Couch Potato is no stranger to excess, whether it be snack foods, soda, beer, or binge watching. But, to this spud’s way of thinking, Hollywood’s latest tendency to jam films as full of heroes, villains, or drama as possible is at best distracting, and—at worst—idiotic. 

The first installment of the Spiderman franchise starring Toby McGuire had an engaging single-strand narrative about Spidey’s clash with the Green Goblin. The second installment, released in 2004, however, had to be bigger, better, and gaudier. Not only was our hero up against the second manifestation of his nemesis the Green Goblin once again, but he also had to contend with the nefarious Dr. Octopus. In the third 2007 installment of the series, the villains included the Green Goblin, the Sandman, and Venom. Apparently, the producers figured they needed more action, more conflict, more CGI, and more star power. Sadly, while the pre-teen and gaming crowd may have been pleased with the supersized product, the movies themselves suffered, becoming rambling, disjointed, and excessive tributes to—well, excess. Two and sometimes three parallel narratives are simply too much for a two-hour feature film. The Sandman or the Venom storyline (as proven in the remake) would have been fine stand-alone narrative strands. 

But no. Rather than producing a well-written and tightly directed feature, the powers-that-be chose to cram as much crap into the film as they could because—guess what? More is better. This has also been a tendency in many of the modern superhero films. There are more appearances by superheroes than you can count in the Avengers, more backstories than can be stomached in the Marvel universe, and more remakes, re-imaginings, sequels, prequels, and redos than seem possible. There are even six versions of the character Spiderman (Spiderperson?) in the movie Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.  The Star Wars franchise has been busy reeling off sequels, too, as have the X-Men, Godzilla, and Dracula films.

This, of course, is done to make money. And it works. Viewers obviously like the copious amounts of villains and drama and violence and technology and star power. But the truth is that you can get the same sort of thrills by playing a video game. The magic of film isn’t in exploding buildings or flying superheroes or legions of villains. It’s our investment in the characters on the screen—believing them and believing in them. Seeing these overstuffed films is like being at a wild party when there are just too many people; it’s impossible to get to know anyone beyond the surface. They may look good and be funny and flashy but that’s all we get to see. 

This is nothing new, of course. While CGI and the Marvel Universe are new phenomena, instead of packing their films with comic-book heroes and flashy technology, old-school Hollywood crammed their movies with star power and spectacle. A cast of thousands, extravagant sets, and a cavalcade of stars brought audiences in droves. Films like Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, and even the original of The Poseidon Adventure exemplified this mentality. Excess in our diets was not as big a part of the American sensibility during the fifties and sixties, but the studios recognized the power of saturating their product until it oozed rivers of audience appeal. 

All this begs the question of how much more is needed to satisfy us? We’ve proven we can gorge ourselves on snacks, junk food, and sugar to the point of obesity. What about consuming junk on the movie screen and on our home entertainment centers? Will consuming nothing but spectacular comic book junk food movies cause our minds to become the mental equivalent of obese? There are plenty of alternatives out there. 

In fact, there have never been as many choices for our viewing pleasure. NetFlix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and others offer everything from classic films to documentaries to independents to new releases. We can choose to—in effect—watch these same narratives with the same characters over and over again, or we can exercise our minds with a solid diet of meaningful movies about realistic people in difficult situations. We can allow ourselves to wrestle with moral ambiguity and tough choices. We can empathize. We can learn from the struggles of others. 

Entertainment, distractions, and diversions are all well and good. We all need them every now and then. But like a diet of nothing but chips, Slurpees, hot wings, and chocolate, too many empty calories in our film and television diet is unhealthy. 

So, every now and then, put down the soda and exercise your mind, your heart, and your soul. Watch a well-balanced and nutritious movie.