Mini Good News | November 10, 2009 | 16 comments

The Yes Men Fix an Interview

source: http://www.tonic.com/article/the-yes-men/

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What do you get when you cross Borat with Michael Moore? You get The Yes Men, a team of prankster-activists who have become infamous for "stealing" the identity of corporations and using the media to make ironic and outrageous announcements in the companies' names.

The Yes Men are Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum who, along with a largely unnamed army of helpers, stage politically-charged pranks meant to reveal the greed and hypocrisy of a market-driven culture. The two are stars of a new film called The Yes Men Fix the World, in which they document the political and corporate hacks they've staged.

And they've staged some doozies, the latest of which saw The Yes Men hit with a lawsuit by the US Chamber of Commerce after hosting a fake press conference in Washington, DC, where they posed as Chamber representatives and said the business group was reversing its controversial stance on climate change legislation.

The stunt was nothing compared to what's probably The Yes Men's best-known action: posing in 2004 on the BBC as representatives from Dow Chemical and taking full responsibility for the Union Carbide tragedy in Bhopal, India — one of the world's worst industrial disasters. Dow quickly denied the story, but the company's stock took a $2 billion hit.

The Chamber and Dow episodes are just two of the hilarious and thought-provoking moments in The Yes Men Fix the World, a fascinating, funny and inspiring film. We can only imagine how the Chamber of Commerce situation will play out in their next movie.

Despite a very busy week lawsuit and film opening, Tonic caught up with Mike Bonanno for a quick interview as he drove from Maine to Boston.


Read the full interview on Tonic:
http://www.tonic.com/article/the-yes-men/
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