The Shopocalypse

I've always wondered what Jesus would buy if he ever went shopping on Black Friday:

What Would Jesus Buy?

When Tyler Durden met his fate at the end of Fight Club's loaded gun back in 1999, I never thought anyone would have the audacity to resurrect him. Wrong. As it turns out, Tyler's anti-consumerism message has once again returned to the celluloid world in the form of an evangelical preacher named Reverend Billy, who is determined to convince America to stop shopping in the latest documentary produced by Morgan Spurlock, What Would Jesus Buy?.

CHANGEOVER.
THE MOVIE GOES ON.

NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA.

In 2004, director Rob Vanalkemade and his camera crew started following Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping across the country on their mission to save Christmas from the "Shopocalypse." Joining Billy on his 6 week tour from New York to Los Angeles in a couple of bio-diesel buses is his gospel choir, the Not Buying It Band, helping him warn the American people about the evils of their prodigal shopping ways.

ADVERTISING HAS US WORKING JOBS WE HATE SO WE CAN BUY SHIT WE DON'T NEED.

Who is Reverend Billy? The good Reverend (AKA Bill Turen), was just another New Yorker disgusted at how the retail industry had turned his neighborhood into a mall. But, instead of sitting idly by and watching the "Disneyfication" of New York City, Billy decided to take matters into his own hands by dying his hair blonde, finding a clergy collar to match his catering jacket, and preaching to the masses. What's his mission? To save us from the false idols and ridiculous consumerism ideals we've mistaken for the Christmas spirit.

WE ARE CONSUMERS.

WE ARE BY-PRODUCTS OF A LIFESTYLE OBSESSION.

MURDER, CRIME, POVERTY, THESE THINGS DON'T CONCERN US.

WHAT CONCERNS US ARE CELEBRITY MAGAZINES, TELEVISION WITH 500 CHANNELS, AND SOME GUY'S NAME ON OUR UNDERWEAR.

Reverend Billy's message is one we've all heard before. It's just a message we choose not to heed, and the retail industry doesn't want us to hear - especially at Christmas time. He just delivers it in a way that's entertaining as well as educational. But, maybe that's what we need. Maybe it's going to take an over-the-top preacher and a gospel choir from the Church of Stop Shopping to make us realize we've been reading the scripture and missing the message.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT,

YOU END UP WITH A LOT YOU DON'T.

Of course, his message for everyone to stop shopping has irritated a couple of noteable retail chains. In 2003, Reverend Billy became the only reverend to have a court order preventing him from entering any Starbucks in the state of California. Two years later, he was banned from every Disney property in the world. But, then again, that's what happens when you shout "Mickey Mouse is the anti-Christ" in the middle of a Disney store.

WE ARE THE ALL-SINGING, ALL-DANCING CRAP OF THE WORLD.

Obviously, evangelical preaching can be rather disruptive at times, but Vanalkemade doesn't leave Billy's message buried in the comical antics of a soapbox preacher. In between Reverend Billy's assorted spectacles of shopping confessionals, arrests, and car accidents, Vanalkemade addresses the other important issues that play into our skewered sense of ideals. Long before the end of the film, Reverend Billy will make you realize that shopping malls may be the biggest symbol of everything that's gone wrong with Christmas, but they're only part of the problem.

YOU'RE NOT YOUR JOB.
YOU'RE NOT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE IN THE BANK.
YOU'RE NOT THE CAR YOU DRIVE.
YOU'RE NOT THE CONTENTS OF YOUR WALLET.
YOU'RE NOT YOUR FUCKING KHAKIS.

Why is it that in some countries, it's illegal to advertise to children under the age of 12; yet, in the US, we spend $15 billion marketing to children alone? Stop and think about it. Advertisers' main target demographics are children under the age of 8 who can't tell the difference between advertising and entertainment. Personally, I don't see how merely limiting the number of commercials during children's television programs does anything to effectively curb advertisers. They've just resorted to the same type of product placement schemes they use in regular adult programming.

THAT OLD SAYING, "YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE."
WELL, IT WORKS BOTH WAYS.

Since American children today absorb 40 hours of media exposure and less than 40 minutes engaged in meaningful conversations with their parents every week, it's no mystery as to why we've become a nation of consumers. But, even more disturbing than the lack of communication between parent and child is the message that's actually being sent. If parents keep justifying their outrageous spending behaviors under the pesudo-Christmas philosophy of "I don't care if I go broke. It's for the kids," how can we expect our kids to grow up to be financially responsible adults? We can't. It's almost as bad as that commercial I saw on the Disney channel last week for a new Monopoly board game that has 5 year-old players swiping fake credit cards. How fucked up is that?

WE USED TO SIT IN THE BATHROOM WITH PORNOGRAPHY.
NOW WE SIT IN THE BATHROOM WITH IKEA CATALOGUES.

Reverend Billy's message goes even further than financial responsibility and tackles the globalization of our consumer economy. By exorcising the demons out of Wal-Mart, holding a funeral for small town America, and marching through Disneyland with a bullhorn, Reverend Billy shows us how the driving forces behind consumerism have become an ugly symbol of today's Main Street USA – empty, shuttered, and outsourced. Corporations and advertisers have turned EVERYTHNG into a commodity, even Christ himself.

A HOUSE FULL OF CONDIMENTS AND NO REAL FOOD.
HOW EMBARRASSING.

It shouldn't take a psychologist or an evangelical preacher to tell us that we as a society are addicted to shopping, that buying is NOT acquainted with love, or that happiness is NOT just the next purchase away. So, how do we fight the evils of consumerism? Maybe Reverend Billy is right. Maybe we just need to buy half as much and give twice as much - real gifts like time & love, not the latest gaming system. Corporations stole Christmas from us. Isn't it time we take it back?

THE THINGS YOU USED TO OWN, NOW OWN YOU.

I KNOW THIS BECAUSE TYLER KNOWS THIS.


© Left From Hollywood 12/7/2007

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic

No, Charlie Kaufman didn’t misspell the title of his latest film. It’s meant to be a play on the name of the real town in New York. But, then again, this is Charlie Kaufman we’re talking about, which means there’s always a method to his madness. Just don’t count on him to blatantly tell you what it is. Much like Kaufman did in Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he is once again testing the boundaries of logical extremes. But, instead of body hopping or erasing memories, Kaufman is exploring the existential realm of a theater director’s very existence in his new film Synecdoche, New York.

For those of you who haven’t pulled out the dictionary and looked up the meaning of “synecdoche” yet, it’s a figure of speech where a part of something represents the whole. Synecdoche, New York does just that by utilizing the design paradigm of the nested doll principle wherein similar objects lie within similar objects: the name within the name, the scene within the scene, the play within the play, the life within the life. Everything in the film either represents or becomes a part of someone or something else.

In Synecdoche, the life of theater director Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is falling apart in the real Schenectady, New York. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has taken their daughter Olive and left him to pursue her “miniscule” painting career in Berlin with her friend Maria (Jennifer Jason Lee). His therapist, Dr. Gravis (Hope Davis), is more interested in plugging her own self-help books than actually giving Caden any type of real counseling therapy. On top of all that, a mysterious medical condition is systematically shutting down each of Caden’s autonomic body functions.

So, how does Caden cope with this world that’s crumbling around him? He takes the MacArthur Grant he received for one of his previous plays, rents a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar, erects a mockup of New York City inside it, and starts working on a ridiculously massive theatre piece he calls, “a celebration of the mundane.” Why? Like the rest of us, Caden is an over-achieving underachiever who is afraid that he will die at any moment without ever accomplishing anything important with his life.

At first, Caden tries to make something profound emerge from the collective struggles of ordinary life in his new play by having each actor live out their constructed lives in his city within the city. Over time, Caden’s focus turns more inward and he starts restaging his own life, resulting in the people from his personal life reemerging as doubles within the play. Before long, identities merge, the lines separating fantasy and reality begin to blur, and Caden’s own existence takes a wild detour into the realm of symbolic existentialism. Ultimately, because Caden is so busy creating his imaginary world, he forgets to live in the real one.

Caden is never able to fully connect with any woman currently in his life because he's always lingering on a previous relationship. When Caden is with Hazel (Samantha Morton), he thinks about Adele. When he’s with Claire (Michelle Williams), he thinks about Hazel. When Caden finally realizes he can’t be with Hazel, he turns to Tammy (Emily Watson), Hazel’s understudy. By the time Millicent Weems (Dianne Wiest) makes her way into Caden’s complicated world, you’re not even sure if she (or Caden for that matter) even exist.

Yet, even though you might often find yourself laughing at the irony of Caden’s surreal world, by no means is Synecdoche a feel-good film. Overall, his never-ending cycle of missed opportunities, missed moments, and missed connections is enough to make your heart break and your head spin simultaneously. His journey is as much about death as it is about life. So much of Caden’s sad existence stems from the duplicitous characters in his life within the play that it takes him 17 years before he’s even willing to show his opus to an audience, and that’s only because the cast has to remind him to do it.

Obviously, Synecdoche, New York is a thinking man’s film. Kaufman purposely layered the film with so many inside jokes and non-linear symbolism, that it is impossible to fully absorb all of them in a single viewing. This is one of those movies where you’ll find something new every time you watch it. Because the film can be viewed on a colossal or miniscule scale, a metaphysical labyrinth or an emotional simplicity, even as an epic journey or an introspective view, Synecdoche can be as simple or as complex as each audience member wants to make it.

From a philosophical standpoint, the film covers every basic principle of existentialism. Caden’s story is the classic example of an existential attitude being grounded in “a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.”[1] Whenever Caden attempts to focus on his own concrete existence, the concepts of dread, bad faith, free will, facticity, the Other and the Look, reason, and absurdity each play a part in the world within Caden’s world. Or, more simply put, Caden’s existence literally engulfs the essence of his being.

Yet, as smart as Kaufman’s latest film is, it’s not for everyone. Synecdoche doesn’t have your standard assortment of action sequences underscored by arias. Nor, is it littered with slang-infested dialogue or shameless product placement. So, if you’re looking for that type of mindless entertainment, this isn’t the flick for you. However, if you’re in the mood to flex your brain a little bit, you may want to check out Synecdoche, New York, where everyone is everyone, playing leads in their own stories as they struggle to come into existence before slowly fading out of it. Hopefully, you'll realize before Caden does that no one is watching. They never were.

© Left From Hollywood 11/7/08

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism