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Flicks - The Yes Men Fix the World The Yes Men Fix the World, the second film by the notorious political pranksters, provokes both laughter and thought. by Chris Dashiell - The Film Snob There was an amusing news story a few weeks ago. A representative from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce made an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington that it had reversed its position on climate change, now saw that it was a real problem, and would stop lobbying against climate change legislation. But in the middle of the press conference, a spokesperson for the actual Chamber of Congress burst into the room yelling fraud. Indeed, it was a hoax perpetrated by the anti-globalization pranksters known as The Yes Men.
The Yes Men consists, with a little help from some friends, of two guys—Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, and this is their m.o: they set up a plausible looking but phony website for some huge corporation or global entity, and inevitably get invited to speak to the press or at some conference. Then they present a statement which satirizes the corporation or entity and its indifference to the problems facing the planet and ordinary people, creating a minor scandal and some bad publicity for the offenders.
Their second film is called The Yes Men Fix the World. It has a tighter focus than their first film, but is just as funny. Beginning with a survey of the destructive free-market doctrines of Milton Friedman, the Yes Men end up at his gravesite, sarcastically frustrated that he has escaped the snares of satire. Then they present perhaps their biggest coup—pretending to be representatives of Dow Chemical, the corporation that bought up Union Carbide, and going on BBC television to announce that Dow had decided to pay full reparations to the victims of the Bhopal chemical leak that killed over 10,000 people 20 years earlier. Dow Chemical stock plummeted, and the company, which continues to avoid the issue, was forced to announce that they would do no such thing. Some people say that the Yes Men unfairly raised the hopes of the Bhopal victims with their stunt. But, they ask, which is worse—the Yes Men bringing attention back to this tragic and criminal negligence, or Dow Chemical refusing to help its victims?
Other entertaining hoaxes include a proposal to an energy conference to remedy the world's energy shortage by melting the flesh of dead people into a new fuel called Vivoleum, and the demonstration of a rubber toy-like inflatable survival suit to be used in case of disaster. What's really amazing is how many people take them seriously, as if their ludicrous, often savage proposals made sense in the context of corporate capitalism, which of course they do in a scary kind of way. But the Yes Men's main strategy is more hope-based, as when they go to New Orleans pretending to be FEMA and announce that public housing will not be torn down after all. By presenting a humanist alternative to business-as-usual politics, they energize the debate.
The Yes Men Fix the World provokes laughter, and thought.