JessFilmAnnotation8

Film Annotation #8 // The Yes Men Fix the World // word count: 752

1. //The Yes Men Fix the World// is directed by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno in 2009.

2. The two main characters dress up as corporate executives and give speeches to try to wake American up from their greed run lives.

3. They create their argument through comedy but intersperse scientific information as well as statistics and research into the specific matters that they deal with. They manage to get the opportunity to interview people form corporate think tanks and through comedy, they get people who do not necessarily agree with them to watch them to the end. It does have emotional appeal because it exposes flaws in our system and exposes the problems that corporations have tried to overlook.

4. The film draws out a number of sustainability issues. They are disguising themselves as people from the corporate sector to expose the political and economic issues within American culture. It also shows that we need to educate people about these issues.

5. Comedy will always help an argument be more compelling. It keeps the audience awake, and people are more inclined to listen and remember when they are in a good mood. The film is carefully structured in such a way that the argument is clear as is the reason that they chose the particular firm that they chose to impersonate. Their motivations are clear which also helps their arguments. Their antics brought the tragic issue of Bhopal back into the media coverage and though it did instill the people with false hope for a little while, simply bringing the issue back into the foreground of political discussion was worth that.

6. I was not compelled by the way that they went about impersonating representatives from companies. People paid to hear a legitimate person speak on a legitimate topic. Companies paid for their employees to attend the lectures and, for the most part, the argument of the Yes Men was completely lost on their lecture audience. Their movie audience who had the framework for their argument understood, but the lecture audience paid to be made fun of in the Yes Men’s movie. This also shows that taken out of context and put into another context, their argument is a lot less compelling. People were disgusted by the human candle and frankly, I was as well and I still do not fully understand or agree with the argument that went into making them. The movie was extremely one sided which I feel also hurt their argument.

7. The film addresses a liberal audience who already believes in what they are arguing for but wants to strengthen their opinion. I do not agree with everything they were arguing for and found some of their tactics to not be honorable and so I would not recommend it to someone who simply wants more information on an issue because of the large bias in the movie.

8. To enhance the educational value of the film, opposing arguments could have been presented in a less biased fashion. When interviewing the corporate think-tank, very specific questions were asked and it felt as though very specific clips of the answers were shown. Properly presented opposing arguments can help to further one’s beliefs in a topic by providing legitimate arguments to the real opposition.

9. Not everyone can impersonate corporate leaders and try to implement change. I believe that the intervention that the film calls for is for people to gain awareness of what corporations are doing and to understand and investigate the actions of these corporations. They also show that people have power; they were able to get the ten year old issue of Bhopal back on the news radar. People need to not forget about the disasters that have occurred and need to keep pushing for change in the corporate sector.

10. Before this movie, I had never heard of the Bhopal disaster so I was compelled to investigate the issue further. The gas leak occurred in 1984 and records state that all the claims were settled nineteen years ago. India’s government took over in an attempt to help the victims and clean up the area. Due to the disaster new safety regulations and standards have been put in place in an attempt to prevent another similar disaster. A major issue with the disaster is the unseen chronic poisoning that the chemical plants leave behind.

[] “Bhopal Disaster” TED Case Studies. []