beatricehamp74: What Are We Going To Do About It: Dr. J Reviews the Movie “Branded”

Thursday, 18 October 2012

What Are We Going To Do About It: Dr. J Reviews the Movie “Branded”

Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

Can you remember when the name of the product brand went from being on the inside of the product to emblazoned on the outside? The just-released Russian and American science fiction film “Branded” put this concept on anabolic steroids.

The movie tells the tale of Misha Galkin, a Russian marketing executive played by Ed Stoppard. Galkin was struck by lightning as a child and goes on to live an extraordinary life.

With the opening credits, the names of famous visionaries including Joan of Arc, Einstein and Alexander the Great are seen on the screen with the caption, “All of them saw things others didn’t see. All of them changed the world.”

Misha could see what others didn’t see, but changing the world would take more than he could ever have imagined. In one telling scene, he remarks to his love interest, Abby Gibbons, played by Leelee Sobieski, “The castrated sheep does not know what has been lost!”

This was soon followed by what I see as the primary warning message of the movie: “Brands were formed from people’s desires, now it’s the people that are being formed according to the desires of the brands.”

I was fascinated by the movie’s portrayal of the unseen problem of food addiction, and how fast food was singled out as a major player in that issue. At one point in the movie, the executives of fast food companies decided that to make fast food profitable again, they must change the public perception of beauty and “make fat the new fabulous.”

In a central scene, Misha is asked by Abby, “What are you gonna do about it?”