Morgan Spurlock, the documentary filmmaker who has made a lifelong career out of food and the American diet, and the Oscar nominee who famously ate only McDonald’s for a month to demonstrate the dangers of a fast food diet, has died. He was 53.
Morgan Spurlock attends the 9th annual IFC Indie Film Festival in Santa Monica, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Shea Walsh)(AP/Shea Walsh)
Morgan Spurlock attends the 9th annual IFC Indie Film Festival in Santa Monica, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Shea Walsh)(AP/Shea Walsh)
NEW YORK (AP) — Morgan Spurlock, the Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker who made a lifelong career out of food and the American diet and famously ate only McDonald’s for a month to highlight the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died at the age of 53.
Spurlock died Thursday in New York from complications from cancer, according to a statement released by his family on Friday.
“It was a sad day as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who worked with Morgan on several projects, said in a statement. “Morgan gave so much through his art, his ideas and his generosity. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special person. I am so proud to have worked with him.”
Spurlock made waves in 2004 with his groundbreaking film Super Size Me, and returned in 2019 with Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, a sobering portrayal of the industry that slaughters nine billion animals a year in the US.
Spurlock was an eccentric filmmaker with a penchant for the quirky and the ludicrous, and his style involved vibrant graphics and rollicking music that combined a Michael Moore-esque, camera-to-camera style with his own sense of humor and pathos.
Since his expose on the fast food and poultry industries, there has been a surge in restaurants emphasizing fresh, artisanal, farm-to-table and ethically sourced ingredients, but not much has changed on the nutrition front.
“There’s been a big change, and people ask me, ‘So has the food become healthier?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, the marketing has definitely become healthier,'” he told The Associated Press in 2019.
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