Black Widow
04-29-2008, 07:34 PM
Chris Bell
Director, 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster'
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; 11:30 AM
In "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," filmmaker Chris Bell takes a closer look at steroid use in America. His subjects? His two brothers, both of whom idolized guys like Hulk Hogan and Sylvester Stallone as kids and, as adults, became part of the steroid subculture.
Bell was online Tuesday, April 29 at 11:30 a.m. ET to discuss the film and his observations about steroid use.
"Bigger, Stronger, Faster," which screened earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, opens in New York and L.A. on May 30, and in Washington D.C. and other select cities on June 6.
A transcript follows.
_______________________
Detroit, Mich: Hi Chris! What inspired you to do this documentary, did it have anything to do with your brothers?
Chris Bell: Absolutely. My two brothers were using steroids at the time that I started the documentary. I grew up in a culture of Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, were the heroes of the time. My brothers and I found out all our heroes took the steroids, so the question for me was, do you follow your heroes or do you follow the rules?
_______________________
Potomac, Md.: Do you think America will ever be able to come back from the "bigger stronger faster mentality?" For example, what is going to make people want to be smaller, weaker, slower even if it's a positive change?
Chris Bell: I see us moving in a profressive direction, I don't see us actually going backwards. I don't think being weaker is the answer either. I think it's about finding a balance where we can exist in a healthy manner without feeling like we need to be the best.
I think there's a lot of prsssur on kids today to excel and be number one, whether it's academics or sports or business or war. We're basically always chasing that bigger goal. We just need to put things in perspective. In my film I wanted to open the lines of communication about steroids so we could talk about it in an intellectual manner.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Had tickets to see your film in Dallas at the AFI festival so I'm glad to see it's coming here. Will it ever be sold as a DVD?
Chris Bell: The film will be released by Magonolia on May 30 in theaters, and the DVD will be out most likely in August or September. It will also feature over an hour of deleted scenes and director's commentary, and some really neat secrets in those DVD extras as well.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Just curious - but have you targeted this film towards college or high school athletes as a means of showing them the negative effects of steroid use in athletics? If so, how has the film and its message been received?
Thanks!
Chris Bell: The film isn't to show the negative effects of steroids to kids. The film is exploring the truth about steroids. I think a lot of times in society we tend to tell kids that things will kill them or destroy them without knowing the facts. The fact of the matter with steroids is we don't have enough information so therefore we can't even tell kids the truth about it. We need more research done.
On top of that, we have shown the film to a large group of high school kids. And the response was they all basically thanked us for not preaching to them and telling them the truth. I think it w as a very positive response. The kids felt like they understood why people were using steroids and what was going on with their own beds. And I think it's good for kids to know they should accept themselves for who they are.
_______________________
Rockville, Md.: I noticed on imdb that it says you wrote for "WWF." What was that job like?
Chris Bell: Basically the job of a WWE writers is to work with talent to help them develop their on-camera personas and what they are going to actually say on each individual show. So I got to work with guys like the Rock and John Cena. It wes a great experience. It helped me as a documentary filmmaker, just being able to work with other talent and other people, like subjects for a documentary.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Do you think that recent major sports records and achievements hold less weight than those of the past because of the possibility that performance enhancing drugs were involved?
Chris Bell: I get asked that a lot. My answer to it is that if the leagues and the sports organizations were not doing the proper testing and not having the proper policies we can't really prove what happened back then. What we could do right now is start with better testing and move forward from there. We could enforce these policies and basically label these athletes as rule breakers or cheaters, if you want to call them that, and those records would definitely hold less weight.
But if we were negligent in the past about what happened, we can't really put an asterisk next to their name. The other interesting thing is the fans are just as responsible as players and ownres. As fans, we feed that. We want to see more. That really feeds the athletes to go out and perform at a higher level.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: In 1984 I remember returning to school for 11th grade and the football players in my grade went from merely athletic to having immense biceps and chests, plus the boasted ability of benchpressing 200, 300 and more lbs. It was as if overnight the core group of five or six players physically transformed into different people when they left junior varsity. I could not imagine someone gaining 40 or 50 lbs of muscle over the summer without steroids and when some started going bald in senior year, we couldn't stop speculating. Have you heard similar stories?
Chris Bell: Yes, absolutely. I think we hear stories like that all the time. Those are the red flags that should go up for parents, to know what the physucal limits of their children are, to know if they're using steroids. We should be able to recognize that.
I should say at that time also, that's when kids are growing the most. When you start lifting weight, there definitely is a large increase in muscle strength because you're on natural steroids. Your body is producing so much testosterone at that point. It's something to watch out for, but there are gains achievable when you're in high school, for sure.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: May I ask what happened to your brothers? Are they still using steroids?
Chris Bell: My brothers basically are doing really well. My younger brother went off steroids and had another child, so they had their second kid. My older brother went to rehab to fix a lot of his other addiction problems and he is doing very well right now. I think the film for him is very therapeutic. As far as whether they are using steroids now, I don't really know and I don't really ask them.
It's a personal decision for them. I think we've exhausted that question in my film and in my family.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Do you have any other film or documentary projects on the horizon?
Chris Bell: Yes, I just signed with the Endeavor Agency and we have been working on a couple of different projects, nothing really set in stone. I am looking at both narrative and documentary films. I feel both kinds of media carry a lot of weight as long as you're interjecting your own personal views into it. I want to do films that are very socially relevant and I want to do stuff with a comedic twist to it. We're working on a couple of topics, things on obesity. Things that are fun and explore a lot of the similar themes as "Bigger, Stronger, Faster."
_______________________
Roseland, N.J.: Does your film explore issues related to the illegality of steroids? By which I mean, there are a lot of things you can do that are "bad" for you that you can do easily because they are legal, but the illegality of the drug adds a necessary level of deceit and subterfuge a person might not otherwise engage in.
Chris Bell: Yes, actually that's a very intelligent question. One of the questions we pose in the movie is why is it okay to get botox and liposuction? And in more similar cases, I could go under the knife, go under heavy anesthestia, have a doctor take a scalpel and cut open my bicep and place silicone in there to make my biceps bigger. But if I want to take a hormone that's made in your body naturally and inject that so I look better and feel better about myself, and is known to be relatively safe for adult males, I could go to jail for that.
We explore that in detail in the film.
_______________________
Chris Bell: I feel that this is a very important film. I think everyone from teenagers to athletes to parents, coaches, teachers, trainers should all go see "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" because we are a definitely a country afflicted by a body image crisis. And we definitely have a steroids issue in our culture. But the film explores a bigger issue going on in America about lying and cheating, so I think it's important for everyone to see the film.
Thanks for all your questions. I will be touring with the film, so check your local papers. I would love to answer any questions in person. We look forward to seeing you at the theaters on May 30 and in D.C. on June 6.
washingtonpost.com
Director, 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster'
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; 11:30 AM
In "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," filmmaker Chris Bell takes a closer look at steroid use in America. His subjects? His two brothers, both of whom idolized guys like Hulk Hogan and Sylvester Stallone as kids and, as adults, became part of the steroid subculture.
Bell was online Tuesday, April 29 at 11:30 a.m. ET to discuss the film and his observations about steroid use.
"Bigger, Stronger, Faster," which screened earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, opens in New York and L.A. on May 30, and in Washington D.C. and other select cities on June 6.
A transcript follows.
_______________________
Detroit, Mich: Hi Chris! What inspired you to do this documentary, did it have anything to do with your brothers?
Chris Bell: Absolutely. My two brothers were using steroids at the time that I started the documentary. I grew up in a culture of Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, were the heroes of the time. My brothers and I found out all our heroes took the steroids, so the question for me was, do you follow your heroes or do you follow the rules?
_______________________
Potomac, Md.: Do you think America will ever be able to come back from the "bigger stronger faster mentality?" For example, what is going to make people want to be smaller, weaker, slower even if it's a positive change?
Chris Bell: I see us moving in a profressive direction, I don't see us actually going backwards. I don't think being weaker is the answer either. I think it's about finding a balance where we can exist in a healthy manner without feeling like we need to be the best.
I think there's a lot of prsssur on kids today to excel and be number one, whether it's academics or sports or business or war. We're basically always chasing that bigger goal. We just need to put things in perspective. In my film I wanted to open the lines of communication about steroids so we could talk about it in an intellectual manner.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Had tickets to see your film in Dallas at the AFI festival so I'm glad to see it's coming here. Will it ever be sold as a DVD?
Chris Bell: The film will be released by Magonolia on May 30 in theaters, and the DVD will be out most likely in August or September. It will also feature over an hour of deleted scenes and director's commentary, and some really neat secrets in those DVD extras as well.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Just curious - but have you targeted this film towards college or high school athletes as a means of showing them the negative effects of steroid use in athletics? If so, how has the film and its message been received?
Thanks!
Chris Bell: The film isn't to show the negative effects of steroids to kids. The film is exploring the truth about steroids. I think a lot of times in society we tend to tell kids that things will kill them or destroy them without knowing the facts. The fact of the matter with steroids is we don't have enough information so therefore we can't even tell kids the truth about it. We need more research done.
On top of that, we have shown the film to a large group of high school kids. And the response was they all basically thanked us for not preaching to them and telling them the truth. I think it w as a very positive response. The kids felt like they understood why people were using steroids and what was going on with their own beds. And I think it's good for kids to know they should accept themselves for who they are.
_______________________
Rockville, Md.: I noticed on imdb that it says you wrote for "WWF." What was that job like?
Chris Bell: Basically the job of a WWE writers is to work with talent to help them develop their on-camera personas and what they are going to actually say on each individual show. So I got to work with guys like the Rock and John Cena. It wes a great experience. It helped me as a documentary filmmaker, just being able to work with other talent and other people, like subjects for a documentary.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Do you think that recent major sports records and achievements hold less weight than those of the past because of the possibility that performance enhancing drugs were involved?
Chris Bell: I get asked that a lot. My answer to it is that if the leagues and the sports organizations were not doing the proper testing and not having the proper policies we can't really prove what happened back then. What we could do right now is start with better testing and move forward from there. We could enforce these policies and basically label these athletes as rule breakers or cheaters, if you want to call them that, and those records would definitely hold less weight.
But if we were negligent in the past about what happened, we can't really put an asterisk next to their name. The other interesting thing is the fans are just as responsible as players and ownres. As fans, we feed that. We want to see more. That really feeds the athletes to go out and perform at a higher level.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: In 1984 I remember returning to school for 11th grade and the football players in my grade went from merely athletic to having immense biceps and chests, plus the boasted ability of benchpressing 200, 300 and more lbs. It was as if overnight the core group of five or six players physically transformed into different people when they left junior varsity. I could not imagine someone gaining 40 or 50 lbs of muscle over the summer without steroids and when some started going bald in senior year, we couldn't stop speculating. Have you heard similar stories?
Chris Bell: Yes, absolutely. I think we hear stories like that all the time. Those are the red flags that should go up for parents, to know what the physucal limits of their children are, to know if they're using steroids. We should be able to recognize that.
I should say at that time also, that's when kids are growing the most. When you start lifting weight, there definitely is a large increase in muscle strength because you're on natural steroids. Your body is producing so much testosterone at that point. It's something to watch out for, but there are gains achievable when you're in high school, for sure.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: May I ask what happened to your brothers? Are they still using steroids?
Chris Bell: My brothers basically are doing really well. My younger brother went off steroids and had another child, so they had their second kid. My older brother went to rehab to fix a lot of his other addiction problems and he is doing very well right now. I think the film for him is very therapeutic. As far as whether they are using steroids now, I don't really know and I don't really ask them.
It's a personal decision for them. I think we've exhausted that question in my film and in my family.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Do you have any other film or documentary projects on the horizon?
Chris Bell: Yes, I just signed with the Endeavor Agency and we have been working on a couple of different projects, nothing really set in stone. I am looking at both narrative and documentary films. I feel both kinds of media carry a lot of weight as long as you're interjecting your own personal views into it. I want to do films that are very socially relevant and I want to do stuff with a comedic twist to it. We're working on a couple of topics, things on obesity. Things that are fun and explore a lot of the similar themes as "Bigger, Stronger, Faster."
_______________________
Roseland, N.J.: Does your film explore issues related to the illegality of steroids? By which I mean, there are a lot of things you can do that are "bad" for you that you can do easily because they are legal, but the illegality of the drug adds a necessary level of deceit and subterfuge a person might not otherwise engage in.
Chris Bell: Yes, actually that's a very intelligent question. One of the questions we pose in the movie is why is it okay to get botox and liposuction? And in more similar cases, I could go under the knife, go under heavy anesthestia, have a doctor take a scalpel and cut open my bicep and place silicone in there to make my biceps bigger. But if I want to take a hormone that's made in your body naturally and inject that so I look better and feel better about myself, and is known to be relatively safe for adult males, I could go to jail for that.
We explore that in detail in the film.
_______________________
Chris Bell: I feel that this is a very important film. I think everyone from teenagers to athletes to parents, coaches, teachers, trainers should all go see "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" because we are a definitely a country afflicted by a body image crisis. And we definitely have a steroids issue in our culture. But the film explores a bigger issue going on in America about lying and cheating, so I think it's important for everyone to see the film.
Thanks for all your questions. I will be touring with the film, so check your local papers. I would love to answer any questions in person. We look forward to seeing you at the theaters on May 30 and in D.C. on June 6.
washingtonpost.com