Performance activists The Yes Men chill corporatists with their 'HIJINX'

October 5, 2:24 PMNY Performing Arts ExaminerJoey Hood

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The Yes Men, a major force in the culture jamming activist movement, storms Manhattan yet again with a Thursday twofer: a special screening of “The Yes Men Fix the World” at The Film Forum and the three-story performance art spectacle HIJINX at The Delancey Lounge.

“It’s flattering,” was co-creator Andy Bichlbaum’s reaction to being awarded with the Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change recently.  For Bichlbaum, it’s all about exposure to issues rarely covered by the corporate media. The Yes Men’s recent offering: 1 million prank copies of The New York Post with the subhed “What you’re not being told: Official City report predicts massive climate catastrophes, public health disasters.”

“It means we have the chance to tell young artists who are wondering what they should do with their talents that this is a good thing to do with them, and get involved. It’s a way to recruit creative people to use their art for change, instead of a gallery art career of dubious value,” Bichlbaum said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

It’s their total identity correction of free market mantras, which are unhampered by the corporate media’s white noise that makes The Yes Men so appealing. Their film “The Yes Men Fix the World” features CliffNotes from Democracy Now talking points–renewable energy, casino capitalism and political nepotism–but it’s guided by a sense of lefty righteousness and a healthy dose of uber-hipster irony. The icing on their heaping cake of corrections involves lobbing a well-placed “to hell with what’s profitable, let’s do what’s right!” at a white-collar convention, to which the bastard sons of Milton Friedman recoil in a state of nausea.

For the Thursday night event, The Film Forum hosts a special Q&A with Bichlbaum and Yes Men co-hort Mike Bonanno immediately following the 8 p.m. showing of the documentary. Downtown cynosure Earl Dax unveils the exclusive HIJINX after-party with appearances from Tony nominated drag legend Justin Bond, alternative beatboxer Reggie Watts, disabled monologist Greg Walloch, Hedwig auteur John Cameron Mitchell and iconic Warhol-ite Penny Arcade. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Brooklyn arts activism collective, Not An Alternative.