Yes Men Fix the World

LUIZA BENISANO
YES MEN FIX THE WORLD
ART 343

           

I thought the Yes Men Fix the World documentary was such an interesting documentary. I wish that I could be a part of such a social experiment. The documentary follows Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno and Kurt Engfehr. They are activists who seek to shed light on issues that involve people being treated unfairly by corporations. Their social experiments involved well-known companies such DOW Jones and Bhopal, Exxon Mobil Vivoleum, Halliburton Survivaball, HUD and post-Katrina public housing and New York Times hopeful future edition.

The start of the documentary shows Andy Bichlbaum fooling BBC News by appearing as “Jude Finesterra”. He then goes on to represent DOW Jones without the actual company knowing; speaking for them by saying that DOW Jones will recompense for what happened at Bhopal by paying the victims of families. An estimated 3,800 died as a result of the chemical accident. He falsely claimed that the victims’ families would receive $470 million.

The company’s stock prices go down, which lead to actual employees of DOW Jones to come out to the media to inform everyone that they would not be handing out $470 million to the victims’ families. That is just one example of what the “Yes Men” did to make themselves heard. Other examples include speaking in events to spoof and to shed light on corporate schemes. All in all, I thought this was such a great documentary. I truly appreciate the fact that there are men out there bold enough to shed light on important issues that people just tend to pass off or dismiss. Their actions sparked awareness in my opinion.