Review of Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008) by Adam W — 20 Jul 2009

Bigger Stronger Faster is a surprisingly deep topic about a very superficial trend in American Culture--body performance enhancement.

Chris Bell, in a Michael Moore-like fashion, incorporates his family's meddling in anabolic steroids, debunking the unsubstantiated accusations against their harm to human bodies all the while noting the miraculous hypocrisy of Americans.

According to bell, America is in the unfortunate dilemma of choosing between two of it's highest values: "doing the right thing" and "being the best." With a little help of the media, toys, the pharmaceutical and "health" food industries, as well as sports such as bodybuilding, baseball, among others, Americans choose the later.

Steroids became popular in the US after a coach found out during a night out with a Russian Olympian coach that their men were on steroids. The US quickly came up with their own batch, an even stronger one. Yet, ironically in Rocky IV it is the Soviet man who uses all these artificial/scientific manipulations while Rocky goes all natural--even though Stalone himself used steroids (as well as other "American heroes" like Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwartzanager. The governator has continually promoted hormone-free life publically, even being promoted to a governmental fitness position under Bush senior, yet he still holds competitions that do not test for steroids. Carl Lewis and others have even tested positive for steroids before going off to the Olympics but the government ignored such calling such use "inadvertent" yet one Canadian runner gets called out and scapegoated.

Even though alcohol and tobacco kill way more people than steroids, steroids have just asmany restrictions on use if not more and are classified with drugs such as cocaine. Just a few years ago, there was a federal hearing on the use of hormones by professional athletes (oh, and one commonly used one, cateral, is perfectly legal and tolerated) in which congress spent more time discussing than the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Somehow these athletes were doing such a harmful thing, hurting the image of American pastimes like baseball. In the words of Biden, they challenged the demarcation between "God-given talent" and "artificial" enhancement. Further, why is it illegal to infuse blood or hormone before a long distance run, yet it is perfectly acceptable to train in high altitude locations or use an altitude chamber to increase red blood cell counts? Why is "naturalâ?? in these instance good yet the genetic modification of animals and crops "progress?".

Yet, the thing is most Americans use some performance enhancing drug. Musicians take beta blockers to help with performance anxiety, air force pilots take amphetamines to help them focus, and students all over take aderal to optimize their paper writing. Americans want to be the best that they can, so why is one worse than the other? And is making anabolic steroids illegal going to change anything? You can still get them prescribed by a doctor for anti-ageing concerns if one words it as "hormone deficiency".

The real problem seems to be the visual culture we live in and the positive feedback of cash. More homeruns, for instance, equals more seats filled in a stadium and more merchandise sold--but this is easiest done through steroid use. Americans spend more money purchasing and advertising drugs *directly* to the public than every other country in the world *combined*!And there are drugs for everything. Plenty of people take supplements after seeing photo shopped before and after photos in magazine ads, especially when that model himself takes steroids in addition to that supplement; supplements I might add, that do not need to be tested before they are released on market, but need to be proven fatal to be taken off the market. And the public continues to be misled.

Bigger Stronger Faster is a great documentary though not without its faults. The film sometimes returns to previous points and seems as thought it could have used a bit more editing or have been more linear. It also drags on a little bit by the end. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this film!