The Yes Men Fix The World

The Yes Men Fix the World is about the elaborate pranks of the Yes Men, an activist group defining their mission as “identity correction”. What the pranks, masterminded by Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum, have in common is their opposition to behemoth institutions and corporations. The Yes Men’s exploits follow a very specific roadmap: first the duo sets up a website mimicking the organization designated as their target. Then they wait to be invited, through the website, to some kind of function, be it a business convention, television programme or press conference. And finally, they attend the function and proceed to expose the fraudulence of the organization they ostensibly represent. Beyond articulating a simple form of protest, the Yes Men’s pranks also involve intervention in the status quo. By way of example, the impact of a stunt pulled off against the Dow Chemical group is to wipe two billion dollars off the corporation’s stock market value. Based primarily on parody and changing identity, the Yes Men’s antics are crucial in terms of revealing the fragile constitution of capital and its rigid dependence on form and procedure. The point is that, no matter how absurd the things Bonanno and Bichlbaum say or do, all that’s required of them to be taken seriously by their target is to masquerade as corporate executives. In the corporate dimness of the conference salon where the pranks unfold, their implied humour – which shocks us as spectators – is perceived as a security gap that goes down at worst like a lead balloon. And this makes The Yes Men Fix the World more than just a series of protests; as such the documentary is ascribed the function of intermediary in securing contact with the real target of their protests. Nadir Öperli