Vegans are very excited for Louie Psihoyos’s “The Game Changers.” They have high hopes for its reach and impact. You might go so far as to say that they want it to change the game. And vegans may just get their wish: “The Game Changers” is executive produced by James Cameron and features a cameo by the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of whom lend it a degree of high-profile celebrity that would be otherwise foreign to a fairly dull — if importantish —documentary about the evils of meat.
The protagonist and narrator of “The Game Changers” is James Wilks, a former MMA fighter and all-around tough guy. As a child, Wilks was obsessed with Bruce Lee. His parents, two very posh elderly Brits, were supportive of his passion for fighting, and sent him to karate classes at a young age (his father’s posh pronunciation of “karate” is the funniest and most exciting thing to happen in this 80-or-so minute film), and Wilks grew into a very successful mixed martial artist.
Throughout his life, Wilks always adhered to the common assumption that eating meat made a man stronger and more manly. Like many (most?) athletes, he consumed large quantities of meat with the sole purpose of bulking up and winning fights. Also like many athletes, there came a time in Wilks’ professional life when he was injured, unable to play, and left with a lot of time on his hands.
Wilks’ spent his down time doing extensive research into remedies for his injury. In his research, he came across a study about Roman gladiators: scientists had studied their bones and determined that gladiators had subsisted on mainly vegetarian diets. (Gladiators were even known as “Hordearii,” which one expert translates as “beans and barley muncher.”) This bit of news had a major impact on Wilks — he’d always thought of gladiators as the machoest guys on the planet. How could they be so tough on a leafy-green meal plan?
This leads Wilks down a rabbit hole of studies, doctors, scientists, and athletes. Psihoyos follows him as he talks to and about these experts, attempting to prove that 1) meat is bad for you, 2) there is a cabal of Big Meat companies keeping us all enslaved to our carnivorous habits through propaganda, and 3) that vegans are way cooler and more manly than carnivores, and that their erections are stronger too. My response, after having seen the movie: 1) meat is obviously bad for you to a degree, 2) no there isn’t, and 3) go away, James Wilks.
Seriously, there’s a lengthy segment of the movie devoted to the relative girth and duration of one’s erection as it relates to what that individual ate earlier that day. This is a movie that not only ascribes to traditional gender norms, it celebrates them and wants to enshrine them. Manly men with big, hard dicks are good; girly men whose boners aren’t up to snuff are bad. Wilks’ ideal man is a bodybuilder with High-T and a hard-on.
The movie makes a convincing argument that if you want to become an MMA fighter, an Olympian, or you simply aspire to inflict bodily harm unto others, you might think about cutting meat out of your diet entirely. One of the film’s heroes, Damien Mander — a preservationist and former Australian Royal Navy Clearance Diver and Special Operations Military Sniper — delivers an especially bananas soliloquy: “I mean, look at a gorilla. A gorilla will fuck you up in two seconds. Yeah. What does a gorilla eat?”
It’s all about beating people up, or lifting absurd amounts of weights, or hiking arbitrarily long endurance trails, or being Arnold Schwarzenegger, or beating people up. These are the things you should aspire to, says “The Game Changers.” I guess I’d take “being Arnie,” but I have minimal interest in the rest of it. Can I continue to eat meat, please? I would really like to.
Then there’s the fact that “The Game Changers” — despite intermittent bursts of energy — is really dull. It’s short, at about 80 or so minutes, full of energetic music and bodybuilding/action montages and juvenile penis discussions, and against those odds it’s still very, very dull. There are lots of charts and statistics; a failed attempt to ground the film in a human situation relating to Wilks’ father’s health; and bodybuilding. So much bodybuilding. And a bunch of burritos. Really, this is a burrito-heavy movie, and as much as I enjoy eating burritos, watching other people eat burritos is a significantly less pleasurable experience. [C]
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