Filming the Shopocalypse
I'm just back from filming a TV trail for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Northern Ireland's new campaign. The audio on the trail is an excerpt from an interview I did with Bill Talen, a New York comic actor and anti-consummerism campaigner.
In the furtherance of his anti-consumerist message, Bill Talen created the persona of "" (a send-up of the worst kind of American TV evangelist) and "The Church of Stop Shopping." He and his hilarious Stop Shopping Gospel Choir organise rallies to challenge the influence of corporations in our lives, which sometimes include an altar call with people cutting up their credit cards. It's an increasingly popular message -- in fact, the Reverend Billy's campaign is even the subject of a short film accepted at this year's Film Festival.
Our trail's director, Tim Newell, and his crew filmed me carrying bags of shopping as I walk through the Forestside Shopping Centre, only to be accosted by a robed choir brandishing STOP SHOPPING placards. It's was an extremely funny shoot, especially when a few real shoppers mistook us for a genuine protest against Sunday trading.
Check out the Reverend Billy in an interview broadcast earlier this year on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson Show.
Comments
Sounds great, ur trail. When can we see it on the box?
I don't know whether to laugh because of his faux pastor image and hairstyle or laugh at the absurdity of his message. When I showed my wife this video, she thought he was trying to spoof the kinds of people who say these things.... she was shocked when I told her he was actually trying to make a serious point. The essence of anti-consumerism is that individuals do not have the brainpower to make rational, free, independent choices for themselves and need the Rev Billy to help them, like little children.
By the way, ummm..... Wal*Mart rules.
Funny. I think there should be a satire of the Republicans and Democrats.
Ok, the "reverend Billy" is a theatrical pastiche, but there is a profoundly serious point here. Material consumerism, which is by no means entirely the province of the US, has evolved from a particular set of business and economic values. These values have now been taken to the limit- and beyond, and we must ask whether the outcomes, in terms of attitudes and values, ethics and morals, are appropriate as our global society moves toward the future.
For example, if we base business models and commercial and financial success on profitability, which is achieved by ever increasing market sales and market share, then inevitably the pressure is on to make more sales and increase business share of the market.
The principle of "ever expanding" as a concept is untenable in terms of both energy and material resources.
Competition demands a "lean business", so more pressure is on to cut the workforce to a minimum and have each employee doing the work of more people, thus increasing stress and resultant stress related illness...
At the consumer end of things advertising and peer pressure drives consumption even higher, a stressed workforce, as consumers, consume more as a palliative, and valuable income can be diverted into over consumption at every level, with inevitable negative health impact for the consumer...
Unfortunately, this overconsumption is "necessary" to maintain the business model and economy, which is locked into a spiral of encouraging ever expanding markets, and consequent consumption to survive.
And the worse outcome of all is the impoverishment of our value set, the values, ethics and morals (or rather the lack of them) that inevitably arises from the competitive consumerism model.
I agree that a spiritual solution to our economic problems is pressing in the extreme, but such a spiritual solution can never be delivered by the "church" of the "reverend Billy", still, if it leads people to ask questions and it opens up the debate it must be a good thing.