BuzzFlash Reviews

February, 2005

The Yes Men (DVD)

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

"With the Yes Men, we target people we see as criminals and we steal their identity to try and make them honest." -- Yes Man Mike Bonanno, on "Identity Correction"

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Could a prank actually bring down the powerful World Trade Organization? Well the political pranksters known as The Yes Men, who traveled the world impersonating spokespersons of the WTO, may not have pulled off that feat, but they did shake the WTO up and garnered lots of media attention in the process. BuzzFlash is proud to offer a new film from The Yes Men, a documentary that showcases how their creative and irreverent stunts exposed the sinister ideology of the WTO and brought awareness to the injustices and harsh reality of "free trade."

The Yes Men are a bold group of activists who some of you might remember created the scathing satirical website www.gwbush.com during the 2000 election and were threatened by Bush’s lawyers with lawsuits. The website actually prompted then Governor Bush to sneer, "There ought to be limits – there out to be limits – there ought to be limits – to, uh, to freedom."

The Yes Men then moved on to create another satirical website called GATT.org – which stands for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades and was the predecessor to the WTO. They thought the satire on their site spoke for itself, but were floored when they received invitations to speak at major conferences and to be interviewed by journalists about free trade.

The Yes Men practice what they call "identity correction" which means convincing their audience of the WTO’s true beliefs. For example, while impersonating WTO spokespersons at a conference in Salzburg, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum gave a presentation suggesting that for efficiency and standardization, cultural differences should be neglected and that the siesta in Spain and Italy should be stopped. They also proposed that corporations should be able to purchase votes from individuals during elections. Mike and Andy thought they would be thrown out of the conference and even arrested, but instead their speech brought nodding heads of agreement. And so from conference to conference and interview to interview, The Yes Men push the envelope further and further to outrageous costumes and even more incredulous ideas.

We think you will enjoy watching this film of The Yes Men touring the globe and with poker faced brutal honesty explaining the true positions and ideology of free trade and the World Trade Organization.

Also read the our BuzzFlash Interview: Mike Bonanno Talks about "The Yes Men," Impersonating WTO Officials and the Truth about George W. Bush.

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