Agustin Lara

Prof. Sleeper

Art 245

December 14, 2014

The Yes Men

            The American government is fueled by power and greed, as well as money, especially money.  Whatever can bring in a source of income for the government is a positive thing and if it doesn’t bring any income they pay no mind to it.  It is actually a very sad system once you clearly look at it.  We all wish we could do something to change that, even the littlest thing that would allow us to be heard, without having to start riots or having to organize large groups of people in order to make yourself heard.  Here’s where the Yes Men come in.  the Yes Men are an activist group who pretend to be members of large corrupt organizations in order to get messages across to the American public.  Yes in some instances these pranks/hoaxes can go a bit far yet they spark something greater.  In their film we get to see them mock major organizations such as Dow Chemical Company, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, and HUD.

            What intrigued me about these men was that they made people realize that the things they were claiming they were doing, as they were hoaxing, could actually happen. Not only that but the role that the media plays in situations like this is ridiculous, they made the Yes Men seem evil, calling their actions cruel, yet the people that were truly affected had different points of view. For this I want to use the Bhopal and New Orleans incidents as examples.  When they claimed to be Dow representatives they claimed that the company was going to compensate those affected from the Union Carbide disaster.  The people of Bhopal truly believed that thy were finally going to receive the help they desperately needed after twenty years, however their excitement lasted a mere two hours.  In New Orleans they claimed to be HUD representatives who were going to re-open public housing so the lower class people would have homes again and almost instantly they were uncovered.  Both these incidents were major occurrences, which truly fooled people yet instead of being enraged they were happy.  They knew that both companies that were being imitated could actually do the things they were claiming to do.  These were all possibilities and achievable goals. The only thing that kept them from doing it was the fact that they would be losing money instead of making it.  Sure we all know that money runs this country yet it has never been put into perspective quite like this.  I would like to recall a conversation between one of the Yes Men and an audience member of the Dow conference.  The audience member said that everything costs lives, but as long as you’re making money it is acceptable.  My jaw literally dropped.  The free market is taking over the world and will never be taken down because they have all the power.  This documentary shed light on the dark parts of the government and makes me wish that I could do something for the people being affected by the governments actions and decisions.