The Yes Men Fix the World (2009)

The Yes Men Fix the World is a documentary follow up to 2004’s Yes Men chronicling a series of high exposure pranks that were played on big businessmen from companies such as ExxonMobil, HUD, DOW Chemical, and The New York Times. The two main guys behind the pranks are Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno though they often credit an unseen team that helps them do the elaborate hoaxes. The film is very smart and funny, and the humor is used to make their message easier to understand as well as make them more likable. Though a bit manipulative, the film is very effective in making the corporations and the logic (or lack of) behind the free market seem wrong and not helpful for society as a whole.

After watching the film, it is hard to argue otherwise. Through setting up fake websites in the name of the corporations they choose to attack, they get invited to several big events like employee conventions and in one case an interview on BBC World, a program broadcast to 300 million viewers. At these events they, while pretending to be important figures in the companies they are about to humiliate, tell people that they are going to do things like, in the case of DOW Chemical, take credit for the damage that their corporation caused in Bhopal (the Bhopal Disaster in 1984) by donating billions to help compensate for the lives and homes destroyed or, when representing HUD, promise to, instead of closing down and preventing people from getting their homes back in order to replace them with mixed-income development, rebuild houses that were destroyed by hurricane Katrina (this was announced right after Mayor Ray Nagin’s speech). There are other instances where they would promote, as in the name of ExxonMobil, alternative fuel sources made out of people. These hoaxes are always found out as the corporations stock takes an immediate dip and the company heads panic. The Yes Men are mainly accused of building false hope for the victims of these corporations and while it is true that these hoaxes may cause false hope (the people that were picked to represent the victims believe otherwise) it also poses the question: Why aren’t these companies doing some of these things? The Yes Men answer this question with depressing honesty. From the film you get the sense that all these companies work under the guise and beliefs made popular by conservative economists like Milton Friedman (to simplify: Greed is good). The message is strong, convincing, and especially relevant in today’s ever-changing world. As a documentary it is well made and, most importantly, accessible. Though it is humorous and Andy and Mike are likable, at the end it leaves a bitter taste in mouth because they didn’t change the way any of these companies work. They offer a hopeful outlook but fix the world, they do not. Instead the film does all that it can really do: make people aware of such a significant problem in society by forcing them to open their eyes and realize that this is not the way things should be.