30 Days In My Shoes? Dude, I Want To Try 30 Days In Yours
Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me fame) is producing a new TV show for the FX network. The reality series, called 30 Days, places people “in unfamiliar social circumstances” for a month and documents their reactions. One of the shows is about a “fundamentalist Christian” who is taken to Dearborn, Michigan for a month. Says Spurlock:
“We took a fundamentalist Christian from my home state of West Virginia, somebody who is very pro-war, pro-‘us versus them’, that when you hear Muslim the only thing he thinks of is a guy standing on a mountain with an AK-47,” Spurlock said.
The man leaves his wife and children at home and goes to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States.
“He dresses as a Muslim, eats as a Muslim, he prays five times a day, he studies the Koran daily, he learns to speak Arabic, he works with an imam, a Muslim cleric, to learn the history of Islam, what are the five pillars, why are they important.”
“And the transformation this guy goes through in 30 days is miraculous, it’s incredible,” Spurlock said.
The documentary maker, who has visited more than 100 schools as part of his campaign to improve school food programs, says the television show is driven by the desire to make people think about societal problems.
Another show has Spurlock and his fiancee trying to survive on minimum wage for a month. Now that I’ll watch. Maybe I’ll set my TiVo.