Weighing in on steroids in America

Americans love a winner and won't tolerate a loser.

According to Gen. George S. Patton Jr., as channeled by George C. Scott, that's a call to arms.

The new documentary "Bigger Stronger Faster*" is surprisingly witty and sly about American culture, when we had expected it to be no more than a debate on steroids in the sports world. Its director and writer, Chris Bell, takes steroids himself and has two brothers, nicknamed Smelly and Mad Dog, who also admit to taking steroids in pursuit of careers in professional wrestling or power lifting. They have pursued what they think is important to America's idea of masculinity - 18-inch biceps, small waist, big shoulders and, above all, six-pack abs.

Chris, Smelly and Mad Dog grew up as fat kids. Their heroes were Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan and Sylvester Stallone. Anything less than hulking hunk would be a failure to them.

Flash forward several years, and their "after" pictures look better than their "before" pictures, but only on the outside. This documentary wavers back and forth between criticism and celebration of steroid use by men in pursuit of the cover-guy look.

For those men, and people who wouldn't go to a gym unless cocktails were served, this is an occasionally funny and always off-kilter documentary that can't make up its mind what it wants to say and takes too long to say it.

Chris Bell was a nobody before the injections. He never quite became a somebody, but he asserts that steroids are not the devil drug that Congress claims. He, like Ah-nuld and Sly and most of the "winners," freely admit, on film, that they took steroids. Schwarzenegger, the present governator of California, admits he began taking them at 15 and was taking them when he became Mr. Olympia at 17 - and says he'd do it again.

Then comes the baseball scandal, and we see Sen. Joe Biden denounce the use of steroids as "un-American." Then, we hear the president, in his state of the union address, take time to alert the nation about baseball worries. Then we hear that the U.S. Air Force is the only air force in the world that supplied amphetamines to its fighter pilots. (That's what the movie claims, and pilots talk about it on camera.)

Olympic athletes are disqualified if caught, but the film chronicles infringements of yesteryear that went unreported - particularly in the Cold War years.

The film asks why it is OK for Tiger Woods to get laser surgery to give him perfect vision but not OK for runners to get drug aid. It reveals a $24 billion dietery-supplement industry that it compares to the Wild West world of "snake oil" cures.

The documentary personalizes the issue via the three brothers, all of whom admit they still take steroids. One promises, on camera to his wife, that he will quit and then, to us, admits he fully plans to return to the drug. His philosophy: "Why be less?"

We see a drunken Soviet coach brag to an American coach that Russian athletes had been injected with testosterone since the mid-'40s. In the next scene, we learn that American scientists were hard at work developing a more powerful oral anabolic steroid.

We're shown that some of those "before" and "after" physique shots are taken on the same day - enhanced and doctored.

A congressman interviewed doesn't seem to know what he's talking about, pro or con. In fact, it's surprising that there are so many arguments on the "pro" side.

The film eventually beats its subject to death. If it's a case of winner take all, the film says, the winner is taking steroids. But does he really win? Hypocrisy reigns.

This is an entertaining, sometimes witty discussion about the meaning of masculinity in America.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com.