Good luck going to the loo in those cossies fellas

Cast: Mike Bonanno, Andy Bichlbaum, Reggie Watts
Directors/Screenwriters: Mike Bonanno, Andy Bichlbaum

As a nation seethes at a cheerless economic landscape run roughshod over by its decadent elected officials and financial overlords alike, it also works itself into a giddied frenzy at the latest offering from confrontational comedian, come satirical mugger Sacha Baron-Cohen. Under such circumstances directing a comparable style of provocative stunt comedy at oversized and uncaring corporations doesn’t so much touch upon the zeitgeist as it does grope it in a manner befitting of drunken teenagers.

This is the second outing of the Yes Men (under the aliases Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum) in celluloid form, and The Yes Men Fix the World is markedly more polished than their previous hand-held camera constructed documentary. The budget might be bigger (thanks to Channel 4’s documentary wing) but the methods of the culture jamming activists remain the same. In summary, they set up fake websites with similar domains to multi-national corporations they have identified as having unsound practices. They then wait for media outlets to mistakenly contact them asking for comment, subsequently posing as spokespersons for said company in order to highlight its ethical inadequacies. 

All very simple, but alarmingly the practice is described as ‘elaborate’ by a BBC fact checker who, for the opening stunt of the film had inadvertently invited the Yes Men onto its Worldwide news service as spokespersons for Dow Chemical, where they accepted liability for the Bhopal chemical disaster caused by a leak at a Dow factory in India in 1984 (something the company has steadfastly refused to in 25 years). Which to date remains the world’s largest such accident having directly killed around 25,000 people and due to the Dow’s refusal to accept responsibility and decontaminate the surrounding area, continues to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands. For good measure, The Yes Men also declare that the company will pay out compensation to those affected, the result of which is $2 billion dollars being wiped off the company’s share price in a day as investors weighed up the implications of a multi-national institution developing a moral centre. The Yes Men, if not quite fixing the world, at least expose and explain the amoral machinations of it brilliantly. 

The duo’s second line of attack is presenting ridiculously unprincipled business strategies at working conferences, and the filmed responses to this are the more cringe inducing and pertinent. The Golden Skeleton strategy to represent Bhopal (literally a poorly painted gold skeleton for the purposes of the presentation), signifying that if a business must have skeletons in the closet they may as well be profitable ones, being described as ‘refreshingly honest’  by one suited exec, is alternatively representative of a disgraceful nadir for civilisation or darkly funny depending on how appropriate you feel it is to laugh at large companies casual disregard for the lives of those in the third world. 

The film depicts a series of similar styled stunts involving the Yes Men, strung together by a narrative critiquing Milton Friedman’s free market principles, which despite sounding like a university lecture you’d stay in bed for, is covered plainly and entertainingly and without condescension. In turn the film’s critics might claim the stunts are juvenile and facetious, but these claims are as unjust as they are manifestly wrong. And although the films only guaranteed audience is those of an outspoken activist disposition, no one who sees it will ever regret doing so.

The Yes Men Fix The World is released in selected cinemas on 7th August. On 11th August there will be 20 simultaneous screenings followed by a live Q&A session with the stars, also expected to be shown on More4 or Film4. 

By David Ellis

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