I never made this connection, but Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. has in this open letter on Salon.com:
Dear Mr. Lucas and Mr. Spielberg,
When I was a kid, your movies were a big part of my summers. So were all the goodies that came with them — “Star Wars” action figures, Indiana Jones trading cards, Reese’s Pieces (E.T.’s favorite candy). Somewhere in my parents’ house, I think I’ve still got a box of treasures with all of those memories. Among them are souvenirs I picked up at Taco Bell and Burger King, like a “Return of the Jedi” soda glass with a portrait of the menacing Darth Vader painted on it.
A generation later, I still eagerly anticipate your movies. My friends and I lined up hours in advance to see “The Phantom Menace” in 1999, and I weaseled my way out of a family obligation with the in-laws so I could catch “Attack of the Clones” in 2002. A couple of weeks ago, I hopped online to check out the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and I’m looking forward to buying the first three films on DVD.
In the 30 years since you’ve started making movies, one thing that hasn’t changed is a kid’s (or in my case, a grown man’s) imagination and wonder. And who sparks that better than you?
But a lot of other things about kids have changed. Their health is one of them. Today, almost one in four kids is obese, putting them at risk for, among other things, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The epidemic of obesity is serious enough that we’re predicting that this current generation won’t live as long their parents and grandparents. That’s incredible if you think about it.
Which brings me to why I wrote this letter. I’m a pediatrician, and every day I see overweight kids coming into my office. Getting families and kids to change how they eat is an uphill battle, and it doesn’t get easier when big studios like yours wheel and deal with companies that peddle junk food and fast food.
Heck, in Iron Man, the first thing Tony Stark requests when he returns to the U.S. after three months of captivity in Afghanistan is “an American cheeseburger.” And sure enough, cut to the next scene where he emerges from a limo and is handed a Burger King to-go bag, then the next scene where he addresses news reporter while chowing down on a Burger King cheeseburger, a nice bit of “brand integration.”
Somehow I don’t imagine the screenwriters generated that bit of business, more likely word came down from on high, “Hey, we just nabbed Burger King as a sponsor, figure out a way to fit that into the plot.” And probably paid some script doctor a lot of money to do precisely that!
But before there is the production draft, there’s the spec script, where the writer controls every aspect of that story universe. And there do you think about issues like this when you consider what/how a character eats, drinks, smokes, etc?
Do we have a moral responsibility in the stories we write?
[Originally posted 5/21/08]
