Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

Tonight Helen, Mom, Bob and I saw the new docu-comedy What Would Jesus Buy?, produced by Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame).  It was most appropriate to watch this on "Black Friday," America's sacred day of post-Thanksgiving binge shopping. (While I've been writing, the late local news has shown footage of people barreling over each other to get into a store in San Francisco in the pitch darkness early today.) The film chronicles a 2005 cross-country trip by "Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping"  that encouraged Americans to abandon the shopping mall in favor of more heartfelt Christmas gifts. 

The Reverend Billy is Bill Talen, a street performer who become horrified by the increasing commercialization of Times Square in 1999. He started out by "preaching" against excess shopping in Times Square, sometimes getting arrested.  Six years later he had a full choir behind him, and was ready to take his message  across the land, in a bio-diesel fueled bus. The choir performs at real churches, where the Reverend preaches passionately and occasionally starts speaking in tongues.  They disrupt the proceedings at the Mall of America, and attempt to exorcise demons at WalMart headquarters.  They re-write the words to Christmas carols in amusing ways. The good reverend even sets up a confessional for people to unburden themselves of their shopping sins.

Much of the theatrics are flamboyant and over the top; Helen thinks Reverend Billy is "crazy."  But it's hard to deny the message beneath all his bombast: that Americans buy many things we don't really need, either to impress others or to feel good about ourselves.  The holiday season--nominally a time for reconnecting with friends and loved ones--has become one big stress-ball focused on buying frivolous things.

Like many documentary film-makers, Spurlock takes on too many issues.  He blasts WalMart for destroying small town America (something Reverend Billy also believes); there is some merit to this argument, but it's also true that WalMart's low prices are a lifeline for low income shoppers.  Spurlock also presents several horrifying stories about the harms that workers (often children) in the developing world suffer to bring us those low-priced goods--broken fingers on a routine basis, and sometimes busted kneecaps when workers attempt to assert their rights.  These are outrages, without question.  But the lesser-discussed question is, "what would these people do if WalMart didn't exist?"  It wasn't all sweetness and light in Bangladesh 35 years ago.

So let's get back to the film's core message: We shop too much, and should find more meaningful ways to express our appreciation for others. That seems hard to dispute, even if Reverend Billy is sometimes hard to take.

Comments

[Helen]

What's wrong with shopping too much?

Shopping is what people do because they enjoy it and they get to have what they buy. Why shouldn't people do what they enjoy? What would be a *better* way to spend money?

Of course when people go into debt because they buy too much, that is a problem. But assuming people buy within their means, I see nothing wrong with shopping.