From the comments on the official page for this movie: "I am a Health/PE Teacher in Cameron, WV and viewed the film with my Strength and Conditioning Class. They loved it! It was extremely thought provoking and brought a new thinking to performance enhancement. The film was well done and showed both sides of this provocative subject. I hope that eventually people start to see that if taken properly that in no way should these drugs be classified in the same areas as cocaine and marijuana. Job well done!" Did you catch that? This mockumentary is being peddled to children in school to bring "new thinking to performance enhancement" by a "teacher" who obviously thinks that steroids have been given a bad rap.
Well, that IS exactly what the filmmaker said he wanted when it premiered - to peddle it to children in schools from grammar school on up.
The film states that because an AIDS patient with wasting needed steroids (already readily available to someone receiving medical treatment for real illness to begin with), it's no big deal for any perfectly HEALTHY male, at ANY age, to use them also. He continuously shows bottles of SYNTHETIC injectable hormones and talks about how "natural" it is to inject them into a body that is already producing normal testosterone levels as nature intended.
What injecting testosterone does, most simply, is this: it causes your body to stop producing its own testosterone (Mr. Bell continuously harps on how it's "reversible", as if to justify doing it to begin with). Regardless of whether temporary or permanent, how on earth could any "responsible" adult, whether a filmmaker or a doting fan who happens to be a TEACHER, be peddling a message to children encouraging them to shut down their own natural testosterone production and switch over to dependence on a synthetic source, for ANY reason or ANY length of time?
The guy starts the film out saying his body dysmorphia is a problem. Then by the end of the film he's playing rousing upbeat music and showing images that show his body image and lifestyle is red-blooded American and just great. Considering body dysmorphia is this in men and anorexia in women, I can't imagine how a film by a skeletal anorexic woman would start off with her stating she has a problem and then not being expected to DEAL with and hopefully FIX it somewhere along the line. If there were an equivalent, every young girl would be CONVINCED to starve themselves by the time the credits rolled. Nowhere in this does Chris Bell go to a therapist. By the end he's happily scratching his itch, his addiction to overtraining and poor self-image. There are so many mixed messages this guy doesn't know which end is up, and yet nearly every reviewer says it's the "truth"? Which "truth" exactly, since this guy was too thoroughly conflicted to even know who he was. Despite his own confusion, the filmmaker has had no problems shooting down dissenting anti-steroid opinions in other forums, in much the same way that he HARD SELLS a PRO-STEROID message nonstop in this film. How could there possibly even be a discussion as to whether this is pro-steroid or not? Do people watching it not have EYES???
People always forget that everything is cyclical, while we rush to and then away from one boom and bubble and fad after another. People so easily forget that one minute we'll have some study telling us that some new supplement or habit or diet is great for us, then another study a few years later will tell us how those same things have been killing us in droves. I wonder if Chris Bell will have even a moment of guilt when years after this "positive" film has been all the impetus that was needed to push some impressionable child or weak minded adult already thinking about juicing into doing it, we find out that in fact it really WASN'T a good idea to inject something into your body that isn't NECESSARY - for not only the user but everyone around him.
As a few other users have pointed out, the anti-steroid voices in this film were presented with mocking responses, music, footage, etc, as opposed to the pro-steroid voices. If that really seems "unbiased", then go ahead and soak this film in without rational thought. It seems that most have.
If Chris Bell succeeds in taking a pro-steroid message to children sitting in school while their parents have no idea what they're "learning", he'll also succeed at this: spreading the anguish of his own parents to the parents of every child. If THAT was the true purpose of BSF, then it's a rousing success. I doubt sincerely that the simplistic logic of children (especially with the obvious bias of the "teacher" above) is going to be sufficient for them to walk away from seeing this being convinced to not juice or have a positive body image (of the one nature, not science, gave them). Chances are the CHILDREN that are going to see this fun, colorful, and extremely irresponsible film are going to walk away from it thinking they've received NO negative message.
Would you want YOUR kid to be in that strength/conditioning class in Cameron WV? I personally wouldn't want a film touting the health benefits of prescription drugs of ANY sort being marketed to my perfectly healthy kid behind my back, but maybe I'm alone in that. It seems we can't educate kids on how to be responsible with birth control during school hours, but we can teach them how to juice, shrink their testicles while they're still growing, unnaturally grow the bones in the forehead and face, and all the other freakish side effects of synthetic testosterone replacement.
Well, that IS exactly what the filmmaker said he wanted when it premiered - to peddle it to children in schools from grammar school on up.
The film states that because an AIDS patient with wasting needed steroids (already readily available to someone receiving medical treatment for real illness to begin with), it's no big deal for any perfectly HEALTHY male, at ANY age, to use them also. He continuously shows bottles of SYNTHETIC injectable hormones and talks about how "natural" it is to inject them into a body that is already producing normal testosterone levels as nature intended.
What injecting testosterone does, most simply, is this: it causes your body to stop producing its own testosterone (Mr. Bell continuously harps on how it's "reversible", as if to justify doing it to begin with). Regardless of whether temporary or permanent, how on earth could any "responsible" adult, whether a filmmaker or a doting fan who happens to be a TEACHER, be peddling a message to children encouraging them to shut down their own natural testosterone production and switch over to dependence on a synthetic source, for ANY reason or ANY length of time?
The guy starts the film out saying his body dysmorphia is a problem. Then by the end of the film he's playing rousing upbeat music and showing images that show his body image and lifestyle is red-blooded American and just great. Considering body dysmorphia is this in men and anorexia in women, I can't imagine how a film by a skeletal anorexic woman would start off with her stating she has a problem and then not being expected to DEAL with and hopefully FIX it somewhere along the line. If there were an equivalent, every young girl would be CONVINCED to starve themselves by the time the credits rolled. Nowhere in this does Chris Bell go to a therapist. By the end he's happily scratching his itch, his addiction to overtraining and poor self-image. There are so many mixed messages this guy doesn't know which end is up, and yet nearly every reviewer says it's the "truth"? Which "truth" exactly, since this guy was too thoroughly conflicted to even know who he was. Despite his own confusion, the filmmaker has had no problems shooting down dissenting anti-steroid opinions in other forums, in much the same way that he HARD SELLS a PRO-STEROID message nonstop in this film. How could there possibly even be a discussion as to whether this is pro-steroid or not? Do people watching it not have EYES???
People always forget that everything is cyclical, while we rush to and then away from one boom and bubble and fad after another. People so easily forget that one minute we'll have some study telling us that some new supplement or habit or diet is great for us, then another study a few years later will tell us how those same things have been killing us in droves. I wonder if Chris Bell will have even a moment of guilt when years after this "positive" film has been all the impetus that was needed to push some impressionable child or weak minded adult already thinking about juicing into doing it, we find out that in fact it really WASN'T a good idea to inject something into your body that isn't NECESSARY - for not only the user but everyone around him.
As a few other users have pointed out, the anti-steroid voices in this film were presented with mocking responses, music, footage, etc, as opposed to the pro-steroid voices. If that really seems "unbiased", then go ahead and soak this film in without rational thought. It seems that most have.
If Chris Bell succeeds in taking a pro-steroid message to children sitting in school while their parents have no idea what they're "learning", he'll also succeed at this: spreading the anguish of his own parents to the parents of every child. If THAT was the true purpose of BSF, then it's a rousing success. I doubt sincerely that the simplistic logic of children (especially with the obvious bias of the "teacher" above) is going to be sufficient for them to walk away from seeing this being convinced to not juice or have a positive body image (of the one nature, not science, gave them). Chances are the CHILDREN that are going to see this fun, colorful, and extremely irresponsible film are going to walk away from it thinking they've received NO negative message.
Would you want YOUR kid to be in that strength/conditioning class in Cameron WV? I personally wouldn't want a film touting the health benefits of prescription drugs of ANY sort being marketed to my perfectly healthy kid behind my back, but maybe I'm alone in that. It seems we can't educate kids on how to be responsible with birth control during school hours, but we can teach them how to juice, shrink their testicles while they're still growing, unnaturally grow the bones in the forehead and face, and all the other freakish side effects of synthetic testosterone replacement.