Movie Review: The Yes Men
Imagine, for a moment, that you find the policies and principles of the World Trade Organization to be unjust, unfair, and downright wrong, so you create a website that looks vaguely like their own website, but is a satire on the WTO itself. Now, imagine that you get contacted by people who want the WTO’s presence at a conference. They don’t know your website is fake. They think you are the WTO. What do you do?
If you’re Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, the answer is simple: you show up and deliver a presentation, just as if you were the WTO. You present the WTO’s policies as accurately as you can, warts and all, with a straight face. Your blistering satire will show that audience just how warped the World Trade Organization really is… right?
There are two things that amazed me in this documentary, the first being the lengths that the Yes Men went to in order to perpetrate their ruse, and the second being just how far they had to go to elicit a reaction from anyone. It’s scary just how much they can get away with. It’s also scary how much their audiences were willing to accept everything that “the WTO†was saying. It’s a searing indictment of economic globalization and the apathy of 1st-world citizens towards the plight of workers in poor countries around the globe.
The Yes Men is a documentary worth seeing. It probably won’t change your life, but it will teach you a little about global trade and the effect the WTO has on economics, trade, and poverty around the globe. It’s worth it for the humor alone, and there’s enough suspense to keep you glued to your seat as you wonder how the Yes Men can possibly get away with what they’re setting up.
The Yes Men, starring Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum. 2003. Available on DVD. Amazon link.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Ich habe der Film gesehen, und ich habe er geil gefunden. Die spaßigen Männer haben auch später mehr gemacht!