In sports, winning is everything, and the pressure to succeed can drive some athletes to start taking banned substances. Filmmaker Chris Bell points the camera at his brothers and himself, all users of steroids. By exploring the reasons behind and effects of steroid use within his family, Bell calls into question the win-at-all-cost attitude so prevalent within American society.
Interesting, really really interesting. Surprising. Though I shouldn't be surprised. Demonize the drug, make lots of after-school specials about it, ban the use of enhancements in professional sports -- all to keep the game smaller (to some degree). You can get strong without steroids; you just can't be the strongest, the biggest.
The aesthetic doesn't appeal to me, nor does the need to be bigger/stronger/faster; but clearly it appeals to a lot of other people. It seems like the behavior -- getting that big -- is what society objects to (at least at some level), and yet it's the drug that we focus on, just the drug. We want the biggest/strongest/fastest, but we want to make it fair, or not about who has the most money (?) Or maybe most guys don't really want to see guys who look like that playing our sports -- seeing their physique moves the upper bar, making us all feel further away from "best". People who don't take the drug, don't have the pressure chamber at home, they feel like they've been cheated, that there's a way around the rules that they didn't have access to. But it seems like everyone's looking to get to the best in pro sports, everyone's trying to get as close to the line as they can without having it ruled as cheating. We want it, but we say we don't -- hey, it really is the all-American drug! Let's put out a million messages and images in advertisements and other entertainment media that communicate just how great it is to be big and cut and unrealistically perfect -- but then demonize the supplements, the steroids, or else pathologize the body dysmorphia, the anorexia and bulimia. The comment about ours being the only country where direct advertisement to the public is allowed is a solid hit. We live in a terribly screwed-up culture.
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