SUPER SIZE YOUR SOCIAL AWARENESS

Morgan Spurlock, the director of Super Size Me, has created a reality TV series called "30 Days" which will begin airing June 15 on FX (in the US). The show puts people in unfamiliar situations for a month (hence "30 Days"). The added intrigue to me is the fact that he's focusing on social and political hot buttons in an attempt to improve social awareness. For instance, he tries living for a month on minimum wage, while another segment deals with homosexuality. But, I think the following is most essential.

This segment sees a fundamentalist Christian living as a Muslim for 30 days and dealing with "what's it like to be a Muslim in America ... who is seen every day as a threat to our freedom." Spurlock said the Muslim episode was one of his favourites. "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 family to live in a Muslim household in Dearborn, Michigan, which has one of the largest Islamic populations in the US. "He dresses as a Muslim, eats as a Muslim, he prays five time 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," Spurlock said. He said the effect on the man after the 30 days was "miraculous, it's incredible".

Now this is what reality TV should be about.