TuttleJPFilm6

John Peter Tuttle

Film Annotation #6 – The Yes Men Fix The World

Word Count: 1,044


 * 1) Title, director and release year?

“The Yes Men Fix The World” is a 2009 film directed by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, and Kurt Engfehr. It is the second film by The Yes Men, a group of political activists that impersonate corporate figures to force companies to own up to past mistakes and spread awareness about issues.


 * 1) What is the central argument or narrative of the film?

The film focuses on particular situations – mostly having to do with large corporations not owning up to environmental problems – and shows how the Yes Men dealt with them. It covers a variety of situations – the Bhopal disaster, FEMA not re-opening housing after Hurricane Katrina, etc. The Yes Men themselves seem to both point out the issues with the environmental problems //themselves//, while their hoaxes show how these problems are //also// issues with communication.


 * 1) How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal?

The movie starts by introducing who the Yes Men are and what they do, and intersperses footage from the various events they have been to, along with the occasional interview, background information, and animation (including some vintage footage from around the mid-twentieth century), to explain the issues they are dealing with. Scientific information is used in the context of explaining what is wrong with the issues they are dealing with, but it does not make up the majority of the film by any means. The film does use emotional appeal in some cases – interviews with people affected by the Bhopal disaster and FEMA, for example. In other cases, they are trying to use emotional appeal on the people they are pulling their pranks on, rather than the movie viewers; the main example of this would be the presentation for the oil industry where they had candles purported to be made from an employee who had passed away and volunteered to be made into them.

4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational? Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological?

The movie focuses on a wide variety of sustainability problems. The Yes Men //themselves// seem to focus mostly on media and informational problems, as their pranks are intended to raise awareness about particular issues. They bring up cultural issues; namely, the fact that the people at the conferences they go to often do not realize that their pranks are pranks – they just consider their ideas completely normal, which, given some of the ideas and, in some cases, how offensive they are, definitely is a problem. In some cases, the issues the Yes Men tackle have to deal with political or organizational issues – how funds intended to help people involved with the issues discussed are used, etc.

5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?

I found the actual pranks that the Yes Men did, and the responses from the people at the events to be the most compelling; at least early in the movie, it was rather shocking that the audience in the pranks often never caught on to the fact that they were kind of being made fun of.

6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?

There were not too many parts of the film I was not convinced by. Some of the details about the issues they were discussing seemed a tad boring at times, though they were usually presented in some sort of a comical way – in some cases, simply because they were absurd.

7. What audiences does the film best address? Why?

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The film would seem to best address the general public – while having some prior knowledge of the issues the Yes Men are dealing with may be helpful in understanding parts of the movie, the narration provides enough information about the issues for people who have never heard of them, and the humorous nature of the pranks they pull make it entertaining for people who would not normally be interested in films that cover these issues.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">A bit more statistics or scientific information could have helped in some cases, but overall, it was pretty educational, and seems to be the sort of movie that would reach a wider audience than some of the other films we have seen, so it would end up educating more people as a result.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">9. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The film does not really suggest too much by the way of corrective action; they do have, as one of their stunts, a fake New York Times with fake headlines for what everyone //wants// to happen, which certainly gets people thinking about these sorts of issues. Overall, I feel that what the Yes Men are already doing is a rather creative solution to the problem.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.)

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">One of the first things I looked up was the Yes Men website. I was quite surprised to see that they are still doing these sorts of pranks, and the group is much larger than I expected – around 300 or so people. The last “hijink” they have listed is in 2010, but there are still prank articles (akin to The Onion) listed on their front page, including some jabs at the coal industry. Admittedly, it would be funnier if the prank articles were part of full-blown websites, but they still work well on the Yes Men site.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">From their site, I found my way to the “Yes Lab,” where they have various projects listed. Some of these are simply hoax articles, while others are more elaborate – an iPhone game called “Phone Story” that depicts abuse of workers who make iPhones; ironically, the game was quickly pulled from Apple’s store, only to be re-released on Android.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“The Yes Men.” http://theyesmen.org/

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“The Yes Lab.” http://yeslab.org