Guest
America is awesome. Remember in Independence Day when it turned out the President was an ex-fighter pilot? Or in Armageddon when we discovered that most of our problems can be solved by huge men with rippling muscles? We used to live in the era of the superlative, when people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan, and Sylvester Stallone seemed to be the embodiment of the American dream. Bigger Stronger Faster is a film about an identity crisis in America. Instead of fighting aliens, President Bush recently had to beg go beg middle east dictators to give us a break at the pump. It also turned out there wasn’t anything natural about Schwarzenegger or Hogan, both pumped up with steroids, not sheer manliness. There wasn’t even anything American about Stallone, he imported his supplements. When our idols have to cheat to win (even our president), are there consequences? Through his exhaustive exploration of steroid use, filmmaker Chris Bell finds our collective pulse. Growing up near Gold’s Gym where Arnold used to train, Chris and his brothers Mark and Mike followed in the footsteps of their idols by submerging themselves in “gym rat” culture. Pursuing football, lifting, and pro-wrestling, his brothers succumbed to the pressure to get bigger, and as a result started to using anabolic steroids.
