Berlin, Sundance, and Green Mountain
BY CHAD SKILES
AND DUSAN VUKSANOVIC
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano, better known as The Yes Men, showed their newest movie “The Yes Men fix the world” on March 25. The movie, still in its post-production process, was screened only at Sundance Film Festival and Berlin, Germany prior to Green Mountain College.
The Yes Men gave not just a barrel of laughs with their film, but also an inspiring talk that encouraged smart activism in its due places. “We’re a small part of this bigger struggle to make companies do the right thing,” said Bichlbaum.
The movie was filled with various media-pranks in which the Yes Men impersonated representatives from Dow Chemical, Halliburton, and Exxon Mobil in order to reveal the greater flaws of socially-irresponsible business. Needless to say, this message hit home with the GMC crowd. “I think you guys are the most enthusiastic audience we’ve had so far,” said Bonanno jokingly.
Although the men were certainly not orthodox, intellectual gurus, the talk was a unique and valuable learning experience. Students seemed to walk away from the movie and the talk with plenty of new thoughts. “I learned about the great degree of trust that is placed in people without always properly checking their qualifications,” explained freshman Simon Winchell-Manning.
While the thought of being able to sneak one’s way onto worldwide news television seems fairly implausible, The Yes Men demonstrated in therir movie just how workable such a plan was. Eventually, this led to them causing Dow’s stock price to drop $2 billion after issuing a fake statement that accepted responsibility for the Bhopal incident. “It goes to show how precarious our global financial systems are and how disconnected the investment world is from reality,” Winchell-Manning concluded.
The Yes Men also held a workshop a few hours before the movie screening, where they brainstormed alongside approximately thirty students about ways to creatively protest various local issues.
The workshop paid off well for those who wanted to demonstrate their support for Vermont’s Marriage Equality Bill during Governor Jim Douglas’s tree tapping campus visit. The decision to have same-sex couples (or temporary same-sex couples) embrace and kiss in view of the news coverage for the event was something that was brought up at the workshop. Andy and Mike explained that the way students were participating in the workshop was the same way they came up with ideas for their own media stunts. “Sitting around in a circle—maybe just the two of us at times—and coming up with ideas. It’s really an organic process,” said Bichlbaum.
After the movie screening, few GMC students demonstrated they could do “outrageous” things for the sake of a better cause. The streaking team ran into Ackley Hall to present the message “Yes we can” (with some possible jumbling of the letters) across their behinds. The two men said the streaking scene was their most memorable moment during their stay at GMC. “That’s never happened before… It’s the craziest thing we’ve encountered at a college,” Bichlbaum said.
The Yes Men were very open about getting involved with the students. Bonanno and Bichlbaum insisted that they be notified if the students helped the school become more socially-responsible with their investments. They noted that they would notify the organizations and journalists they are affiliated with if the students succeed. “If you would like to participate in anything we’re doing or if you’re interested in a project of your own, we want to try and hook you up with this network we’re developing with our website,” Bonanno said during the Question/Answer session.
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=481
Posted by Dusan Vuksanovic
on Apr 8, 2009 Filed under College, World.
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