The Yes Men Fix the World opens with a surprising admission of guilt.
The scene is a BBC studio in December 2004, where a Dow Chemical representative is apologizing and promising amends for the chemical leak in Bhopal, India 20 years earlier that killed over 3,000 people and made over 100,000 more ill.
Those familiar with the Yes Men will no doubt recognize the Dow Chemical rep is actually Andy Bichlbaum, one half of the anti-globalization jesters responsible for large-scale pranks on corporations and governments the two see as acting out of line.
The Yes Men have built their reputation on targeting corporate America—their first big project was a convincing fake website for the WTO (gatt.org) that led to their being invited to speak at conferences around the world. They have since produced dozens of other sites and shown up as imposters for companies and agencies, espousing fake and often ridiculous pronouncements to make a broader point.
While some of their actions have obvious measurable consequences—the Bhopal stunt tanked Dow’s stock by $2 billion in 21 minutes—they are most successful at embarrassing the targets of their japes. Last year, Prime Minister Harper called the group “childish” for sending out a phony press release about Canada’s environmental policy, and they are now facing legal action from the United States Chamber of Commerce. (No other “victims” have tried to sue them, apparently fearing the attention it might bring.)
The Yes Men’s new film is basically an addendum to the self-titled previous one, a quick update on their activities since the beginning of the Bush era. As America’s politics went more haywire, the Yes Men became bolder. In The Yes Men Fix the World, the duo imposters a broad range of targets, including Haliburton, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development department, and in a sweeping final gesture, The New York Times (in the form of 80,000 fake newspapers). In one especially baffling gag at an energy conference in Calgary, oil company executives were shocked by the slow realization that the keynote speakers had given them candles made of “human flesh.” (It was actually just hair and a number of unpleasant smelling waxes.) That gag took almost six months to properly organize.
While their ability to deceive so many is remarkable, it’s perhaps most interesting that the group still hasn’t been caught in the act.
“We actually did get detained by the private security guards in Calgary,” Bichlbaum tells The Varsity over the phone from their promotional tour. “The conference organizer convinced them to hold us in a pen. And it was hard for the security, because these guys are used to drunken cowboys, and they were being asked to detain the keynote speakers of the conference, and to actually drag us off the podium. So they initially refused. They held us in a holding cell, but when the police came, they’re the ones who believed us. They were like ‘these guys are fine.’”
Regardless of the film’s politics, just watching Bichlbaum and his partner, Mike Bonnano, work is a masterfully tense experience. You can almost feel their goosebumps during each new high-wire act.
“It makes it much more interesting [to include that footage in the film], watching how genuinely messed up we are in reality trying to do one of these things,” says Bonnano. “It’s like watching a really funny train wreck. But the worse you are as an actor, the more genuine you often seem as a person. If you’re awkward, acting a little weird, they just think you’re more genuine. Because nobody suspects you’re acting. Why should they?”
“It doesn’t seem to get that much easier each time,” adds Bichlbaum. “Weirdly, the nervousness is about the same each time, even though intellectually we know it’s going to work. I recommend just going into a corporate meeting dressed really well, and just enjoying the feeling and the nervousness that it gives you. What are they going to do, doubt that you’re a real person? It’s not very often there are imposters. Unfortunately.”
The new doc raises many of the same interesting questions as the last one—the mere presence of these unconvincing phonies in the well-conditioned halls of power brings up obvious issues of authenticity and the nature of power structures.
However, a few points don’t quite land. Their use of The Shock Doctrine as a kind of framing device (“We list Naomi Klein as our primary ‘thought stylist’ on the film,” quips Bichlbaum) only partly works. Plus, the duo’s decision to direct the film themselves sometimes lends itself to an overly self-congratulatory tone. While there is tons of entertainment value to watching corporate America humiliate itself—there’s a great scene where Bonnano, dressed in a ridiculous contraption called the “Survivaball,” receives an enthusiastic response from venture capitalists looking to invest in disaster relief projects—I can see how the catharsis doesn’t reach much beyond the already converted.
But as Bichlbaum and Bonnano see it, the movie is much more a call to action than an act of persuasion. Especially one year into the stagnant Obama administration, the movie seems perfectly timed to rile progressive activists lulled into inactivity by having a liberal Democrat in the White House.
“Even with a ‘good person’ [in the White House], he needs a lot of pressure to face the countervailing corporate pressure,” says Bonnano. “We’re not so much hopeful for his administration, but hopeful for the American and global public that we’ll do something. It’s not just the Obama administration. We need some change in Canada, quickly, if we’re going to save the planet.”
“There’s nothing special about doing these things,” adds Bichlbaum. “It’s not brain science or rocket surgery. It’s just deciding to go out and do something.”
If that includes dressing up in a giant squishie ball to embarrass a capitalist in a suit, then all the better.
The Yes Men Fix the World is playing now at the Canada Square theatre.
