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Event
Benefit screening: "The Yes Men Fix the World"
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno -- a.k.a., the Yes Men -- are two guys who just can't take "no" for an answer.
They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways -- basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run (and ruin) the world.
In 2004, Andy got on the biggest TV news program in the world by purporting to be a Dow Chemical Corporation spokesperson, and announced that Dow would finally clean up the site of the largest and deadliest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe some 20 years earlier.
The result? As people worldwide celebrated the company's seeming change of heart, Dow's stock dropped by $2 billion. People wanted Dow to do the right thing, but "the market" declared that the company's priorities -- and shareholders -- wouldn't put people ahead of profits.
That reality hit Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: We have created an economic and political system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and our so-called "leaders" are actually mindlessly following its pathological dictates. If we continue to leave the market in the driver's seat, it will happily drive the whole planet off a cliff chasing ever-higher profits.
At one business conference after another, the Yes Men try to wake up their corporate audiences to that frightening prospect, while in the process taking on some of the world's biggest and baddest corporations.
So, for example, Andy and Mike posed as Exxon spokespeople who were demonstrating a new "biofuel" made from the victimes of climate-change themselves. It's hard to decide whether to laugh or cry as you watch the their totally credulous audience learn that the lit candles they are holding are made from the corpses of dead people.
On their journey, the Yes Men act as gonzo journalists, delving deep into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other institution to determine our direction as a society.
Andy and Mike visit the twisted (and unintentionally hilarious) underworld of the "free market" think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that's destroying our planet.
As they address 300 million viewers on the BBC, and in front of 1,000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, peeling back the layers of lies to reveal the raw heart of truth -- a truth that brings with it hope.
Yes Man and co-writer/co-producer/co-director Andy Bichlbaum will be in attendance at both shows for a post-screening Q & A with the audience.
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LocationRoxie Theater
3117 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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