Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Directed by Chris Bell
Activism lives on: Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Chris Bell’s smartly assembled documentary about the great American steroid controversy, takes on the subject as though counteracting the blacklist. Without endorsing use of the drug, Bell, who’s a bodybuilder himself, dives into the heated debates surrounding the maligned practice and finds something pretty damn close to an even-handed portrait, if not a fair and balanced one. But that’s basically the point: Issuing a blanket decree for or against steroid use isn’t exactly fair, because steroid users generally don’t care about balance. To understand them, one must comprehend the weight of their ambitions.
Bell lays it out with a killer opening, tracking the ripple effect of 1980s action heroes on bodybuilder aspirations through the lens of his own nostalgia. Using some hilarious highlights from the works of Stallone and Schwarzenegger (thank you, fair use!), Bell recalls his teen years in upstate New York, where he and his equally chunky brothers channeled their physical frustrations into building muscles of steel.
Over a decade later, Bell and his siblings remain tied to the bodybuilder community, but while the director swears off steroids and twiddles his thumbs at Gold’s Gym, his devout brothers maintain dreams of wrestling championships and record-breaking antics, relying on the drug to keep their realistic goals—or the illusions of realistic goals—intact. With this personal framing device, Bell examines the disdain for steroid usage in sports and throughout American culture, justifying its existence and bemoaning examples of its abuse. The paradox (Steroids are good! Steroids are bad!) creates a compellingly apt expression of modern body-image problems in blue-collar America.
Rather than Willy Loman, consider the door-to-door hustlers in the Maysles brothers’ Salesman as if they handled the business of throbbing biceps. Yet the temptation to become a member of the flesh-beast generation with a one-measly-pill habit essentially parallels the red/blue conundrum set forth in The Matrix: It’s not hard to live the dream, but nobody likes waking up, even if it’s inevitable.
The refreshingly sober approach Bell takes heads in a dozen directions at once, veering from heavyweight woes to baseball’s latest Congressional hurdles; but the filmmaker keeps the dialogue relaxed and innocent, rather than overtly accusatory. Applying straightforward, unassuming narration, he establishes his curiosity and relates it to a larger Western conundrum: How can something with such an extreme effect get used in moderation? Rather than trying to uncover a definitive answer, Bell organizes an informative shrug. “Peanuts can kill some people,” says one expert, providing an intriguing analogy.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster covers a lot of ground—maybe too much—in just under two hours. However, Bell has an eye for keeping his audience engaged: The highlight arrives when he locks arms with California’s noted “Governator” at a public appearance, and their exchange makes the front page of the local paper. Speaking of peanuts, here’s the elephant in the room: If steroid users deserve condescending public disapproval, then so does the American government.
Directed by Chris Bell
Activism lives on: Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Chris Bell’s smartly assembled documentary about the great American steroid controversy, takes on the subject as though counteracting the blacklist. Without endorsing use of the drug, Bell, who’s a bodybuilder himself, dives into the heated debates surrounding the maligned practice and finds something pretty damn close to an even-handed portrait, if not a fair and balanced one. But that’s basically the point: Issuing a blanket decree for or against steroid use isn’t exactly fair, because steroid users generally don’t care about balance. To understand them, one must comprehend the weight of their ambitions.
Bell lays it out with a killer opening, tracking the ripple effect of 1980s action heroes on bodybuilder aspirations through the lens of his own nostalgia. Using some hilarious highlights from the works of Stallone and Schwarzenegger (thank you, fair use!), Bell recalls his teen years in upstate New York, where he and his equally chunky brothers channeled their physical frustrations into building muscles of steel.
Over a decade later, Bell and his siblings remain tied to the bodybuilder community, but while the director swears off steroids and twiddles his thumbs at Gold’s Gym, his devout brothers maintain dreams of wrestling championships and record-breaking antics, relying on the drug to keep their realistic goals—or the illusions of realistic goals—intact. With this personal framing device, Bell examines the disdain for steroid usage in sports and throughout American culture, justifying its existence and bemoaning examples of its abuse. The paradox (Steroids are good! Steroids are bad!) creates a compellingly apt expression of modern body-image problems in blue-collar America.
Rather than Willy Loman, consider the door-to-door hustlers in the Maysles brothers’ Salesman as if they handled the business of throbbing biceps. Yet the temptation to become a member of the flesh-beast generation with a one-measly-pill habit essentially parallels the red/blue conundrum set forth in The Matrix: It’s not hard to live the dream, but nobody likes waking up, even if it’s inevitable.
The refreshingly sober approach Bell takes heads in a dozen directions at once, veering from heavyweight woes to baseball’s latest Congressional hurdles; but the filmmaker keeps the dialogue relaxed and innocent, rather than overtly accusatory. Applying straightforward, unassuming narration, he establishes his curiosity and relates it to a larger Western conundrum: How can something with such an extreme effect get used in moderation? Rather than trying to uncover a definitive answer, Bell organizes an informative shrug. “Peanuts can kill some people,” says one expert, providing an intriguing analogy.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster covers a lot of ground—maybe too much—in just under two hours. However, Bell has an eye for keeping his audience engaged: The highlight arrives when he locks arms with California’s noted “Governator” at a public appearance, and their exchange makes the front page of the local paper. Speaking of peanuts, here’s the elephant in the room: If steroid users deserve condescending public disapproval, then so does the American government.
