Social Activists the Yes Men Look Back at Decades of Antics

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The Yes Men, Igor Vamos (aka Mike Bonanno) and Jacques Servin (aka Andy Bichlbaum), in Columbus Circle Thursday, where they peddled ice from the ‘last icebergs in the Arctic.’ Photo: Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

Even the Yes Men have their moments of doubt.

The social activists are known for hoaxes that target corporations such as Dow Chemical and Halliburton, posing as suit-wearing representatives making surprising announcements.

On Thursday in Central Park, for example, they provided passersby with snow cones made from the “last icebergs in the Arctic,” all courtesy—they claimed—of Shell Oil. Fellow activists, disguised in sporty orange outfits as part of a corporate street team, promised “the first taste of the last frontier.”

The day was a success, even if they got kicked out of the park after a couple of hours. But along the way, the men have questioned their purpose.

“If you’re playing 16-18 hours a day, every day, there’s not much time for other people, or jobs, or things like that,” said Igor Vamos, who adopted the pseudonym Mike Bonanno for his Yes Men activities.

Along with Jacques Servin, who goes by Andy Bichlbaum, Mr. Vamos formed the Yes Men in 1999, amid protests against the World Trade Organization. The duo’s antics, previously documented in “The Yes Men” (2003) and “The Yes Men Fix the World” (2009), continue in a film, “The Yes Men Are Revolting,” that opens in New York on Friday.

Now middle-aged college professors, Messrs. Vamos and Servin find themselves at a crossroads in the documentary. Mr. Vamos, married with two children, decides to leave New York and follow his wife to Scotland. Then they have a third child.

“The movie is about coming to grips with that and having different ways we are living our lives. It makes for conflict,” Mr. Vamos said. “Everyone has to figure out how to balance it.”

Mr. Servin has a new boyfriend that he is serious about but finds it hard to sustain the romance and be a Yes Man, too.

“In the five years of making this film,” Mr. Servin said, “I ruined a relationship and lost a job.”

What he didn’t lose was Mr. Vamos, who eventually returned with his family to New York. The film revels in various Yes Men actions, including one in which protesters waded into the East River inside inflatable outfits—a stunt timed to a climate-change summit at the United Nations.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the New York Police Department intervene, and Mr. Servin is handcuffed and jailed for an old bicycling ticket.

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The Yes Men and activists in inflatable outfits wade into the East River in a 2009 climate-change protest. Photo: Nate ‘Igor’ Smith/The Orchard

Subversive humor is part of the Yes Men mission, but the film’s focus is on the men’s enduring friendship and how, over time, they learn to juggle their ideals with their personal lives.

“When they first got together, it really was sparks flying,” said Laura Nix, a longtime friend of both men, a producer of their previous film, “The Yes Men Fix the World,” and co-director of the latest one. “They were inseparable. They spent all their time together.”

A flashback to earlier days reveals how Mr. Vamos lost a girlfriend, in part, because of his bond with Mr. Servin.

“It was important to make their lives a part of the film,” Ms. Nix said. “It’s hard to maintain friendships for decades.”

Though the film doesn’t belabor the point, it’s also the rare document of something else. “We didn’t really think that one of us is gay and one of us is straight,” Mr. Vamos said. “There’s different ways that affects our relationships, like the changes I had in my life with kids. It’s becomes more interesting than we knew, when we were just living it.”

The film uses global warming as a theme to tie together a wide range of Yes Men culture-jamming stunts that deal with issues stretching from Uganda to the Arctic.

They provided Ms. Nix with 1,000 hours of footage, she said, in addition to her own.

“Parts of the film look like they were shot by children,” she said. “I thought, oh my God, what’s that going to be like to edit?”

The film doesn’t only emphasize the successes. To call attention to an Arctic oil-drilling partnership between Russia’s Gazprom and Shell Oil Company, they hold a press event in Amsterdam where fake corporate representatives stage the gifting of a polar bear—in reality, two Yes Men accomplices in an awkwardly occupied ursine costume.

Security turns them away from an Amsterdam zoo, and barely anyone shows up at the backup location.

“Failure is one of the inspirations for the film,” Ms. Nix said. “It’s really a struggle. I’ve been around a lot when things were a complete bust.”

It takes Occupy Wall Street to save the Yes Men from their disillusionment. Standing in Zuccotti Park during the 2011 protests, Mr. Servin said they had a realization.

“With Occupy, we realized that we are part of this and that this is actually achieving something,” he said. “If you’re part of something bigger, your action is going to be meaningful. Even when we were failing, we were succeeding.”