WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY?

'Tis the season for a Shopocalypse!

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir have a message for Christmas shoppers across the United States: stop shopping! Specifically, they are trying to save shoppers from the Shopocalypse. Reverend Billy, with his bleach blond hair sprayed into a perfect coif, his white teeth, and his fake tan, looks like he stepped directly from the TV studio of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (one of my guilty channels to pass time on a rainy day). In fact, he comes across a yet another crazy Christian preacher followed by his flock until you actually listen to the words of the Christmas carols and gospel tunes that they are singing to unsuspecting shoppers in malls across America:

Who are these politicos? Have you ever seen one live?
They gotta live uptown, somewhere where they can hide.
Who buys them all that TV time? He’s the one who broke your lease.
Officials slick their palms with grease.

Pushback
Stop that Starbucks not another.
Pushback
No your latte’s not my lover.
Pushback
Don’t take slavery in my coffee.
Pushback
We like Fair Trade - it’s so tasty.

This town ain’t no super
This town ain’t no super
This town ain’t no supermall

It is all very clever when you stop to listen, no matter how confusing and exhausting the delivery of the message. In fact, since Reverend Billy is always ON, What Would Jesus Buy? sometimes gets a little tiresome in its non-stop onslaught and disturbing statistics. Ironically, it takes a terrible bus accident on the freeway (where several members of the performance group are injured and sent to the hospital) to make Billy (and the film) take it down a notch. The most effective and moving parts of the film are not when Billy is yelling and singing to delighted and confused passers-by, but when he is buying a sweater (made in America!) in a small-town shop that is being killed by WalMart down the highway, or when we see a formerly homeless man living in a tiny studio, thankfully hosting a group of friends for Christmas dinner.

Billy's message is indeed a good one (one which I wholeheartedly agree with), but the film's disturbing examples of rampant consumerism could have been balanced by images of people living the opposite way. That said, Billy, I encourage you and your folks to keep getting the word out!