Documentaries can be informative, entertaining and influential, but the more I watch them and the more accessible they become through the streaming platforms, the more it is apparent that they are too often pure propaganda instruments and inherently untrustworthy. Almost no documentaries are made from a neutral or objective points of view. In today’s indoctrination-oriented educational system, they are increasingly weaponized to advance political agendas. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” despite having many of its “truths” debunked and declared bad science, is still turning up in classrooms as if it weren’t the slick manipulative advocacy production it is. There is the despicable Michael Moore, of course, all of whose documentaries cheat with deceptive editing and politically slanted deceit. Even Ken Burns, whom I once admired, proved with his “The US and the Holocaust” that he could not be trusted. I’m a fool: he is affiliated with PBS. Of course he’s pushing a progressive agenda.

Documentaries should be watched with the presumption that they are dishonest, made from biased perspectives, and untrustworthy. Then it is the burden of the documentary to prove otherwise.

Morgan Spurlock died this week of cancer at the relatively young age of 53. He had one great idea for a gimmick documentary, pulled it off with humor and wit, and made himself famous and rich in the process. The idea became his Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Super Size Me,” documenting his physical deterioration as he ate nothing but McDonald’s fast food for 30 days. The movie followed Spurlock and his girlfriend throughout his Golden Arches orgy, with intermittent interviews with health experts and visits to his alarmed physician as he packed on 25 unhealthy pounds and found his liver function deteriorating. Naturally, many schools across the country couldn’t resist showing the film to gullible students. But the documentary, which earned more than $22 million at the box office, was entirely a scam. (Spurlock certainly left some clues: his production company was called “The Con.”) It was pretty obvious from the beginning, or should have been, that this was hardly a valid scientific experiment, but the same woke, anti-corporate dictators that cheered when Michael Bloomberg taxed jumbo sugary drinks in New York City were thrilled to pretend it was.

Not only did Spurlock only eat at McDonalds, he made sure his health would deteriorate by engaging in virtually no exercise. As critics of his stunt (who nobody wanted to listen to) pointed out at the time, someone Spurlock’s size can eat 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day with normal exercise and not gain weight. For “Supersize Me,” he consumed 5,000 to 5,500 calories a day. At approximately a pound gained for every 3,500 extra calories, Spurlock made sure he would gain about one or two pounds every day. Blaming that on McDonald’s would be like blaming Robert DeNiro’s gaining 60 pounds to play Jake La Motta in “Raging Bull” on acting: Making movies makes you fat! Spurlock could have gained the same amount of weight eating anywhere, including at his home or the Ritz, but the goal was to demonize McDonald’s, and the media and the health Nazis were thrilled to help out.

In fact, consuming 5,000 calories at McDonald’s requires dedicated gluttony. I wondered why the chain didn’t sue Spurlock for product disparagement; maybe it was a Streisand Effect-driven decision.

There is more. In 2017, Spurlock revealed that he was a lifetime alcoholic, despite telling his film’s audiences that he had no prior health conditions as well as that he consumed nothing but McDonald’s food and drink during his month of fast food binging. The loss of liver function that his doctor detected in one of the filmed visits in “Supersize Me” sounds lot more the consequences of alcohol abuse than Big Mac abuse. If Spurlock had been an alcoholic since his teens as he said, the likelihood that he wasn’t drinking in the 30 days covered by his film is non-existent. Alcoholic beverages are caloric.

Spurlock refused to release his daily logs tracking his food intake. Gee, I wonder why. Alcoholics are habitual liars. Health researchers were also unable to replicate his results in controlled studies. Again: Gee, I wonder why.

Well, give him credit: Morgan Spurlock fooled a lot of people who wanted to be fooled and got away with it. Once. After his various confessions were made public, a sequel called “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” bombed.

As for me, I think I’ll think of Spurlock every time the news media and activists are pointing to a new documentary as “proof” of some position, claim or political creaming point, as well as every time I’m on the verge of being taken in. If the lesson of “Supersize Me” is that all such propaganda should be viewed with skepticism, his short life will have had value to society after all.