Fox News may suggest that shopping during the holidays is your patriotic duty in the war on terror, but the new documentary What Would Jesus Buy? suggests that there's another war to be waged, a war on consumerism. In this war, Disney, Wal-Mart and Starbucks are the axis of evil; Mickey and Santa are the evil-doers who've overthrown Jesus; and every mall in America is a training camp to brainwash our kids into becoming rabid consumers.
Carolyn: "I could live in the mall, I dreamed I lived in a mall and my parents owned it and I could get whatever I wanted. I'm a pretty smart girl I can tell when they're trying to get us to buy stuff but I want to buy their stuff. If everyone wants to buy it then I want to buy it. Sometimes I think you have to buy your clothes at a certain place or you won't be considered normal."
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir (Morgan Spurlock Presents)
Enter Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping. They preach a different message and suggest an alternate path than the one leading to eternal debt.
Reverend Billy: "We are all proceeding into the shopping season under an enormous misunderstanding, we think we are consumers at Christmas time but we are being consumed at Christmas time."
Reverend Billy's calling for a "changelujah." And in case you haven't realized, Reverend Billy isn't a real minister. Reverend Billy is the blonde pompadoured stage persona of anti-shopping activist and performance artist Bill Talen. But as Reverend Billy, Talen gives mock sermons in stores, malls and anywhere you find consumers consuming. His impassioned preaching leave shoppers stunned and generally end with him being escorted off the premises.
Security guard: "Your preacher back there will go to jail"
Talen engages in classic agit-prop theater employing humor and high energy theatrics to entertain and provoke. What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy on his stop shopping bus tour across America. It ends on Christmas Day with a covert invasion of Mickey's home turf, Disneyland.
Tour guide: "May you always treasure this very special Christmas Day in the happiest place on earth."
But Mickey's security guards aren't happy with Billy's impromptu march down Main Street.
Reverend Billy: Main Street USA, it's made in China
Security guard: Sir you have to stop.
Billy's audacity has definite appeal and nervy humor. Director Rob VanAlkemade keeps the film slickly paced and highly entertaining. He uses Reverend Billy as the film's driving force but also interviews authors, activists and consumers about America's obsession with material goods, and with a buy now pay later mentality.
Man: "Credit cards give you a false sense of economic security"
There are genuinely important issues raised here but too often VanAlkemade proves more interested in Talen's slick theatricality. In the end, though, Talen doesn't really want us to stop shopping but rather to think before we buy. To ask can we buy American? Can we buy from mom and pop shops? And can we buy from socially responsible companies? These are the serious questions that emerge from behind the film's and Reverend Billy's glib faade.
Companion viewing: The Yes Men, Super Size Me, Marjoe
