What Would Jesus Buy?

What Would Jesus Buy premiered tonight at SXSW in Austin, TX in front a crowd over a thousand people at Austin's Paramount theater. It was very well-received by the crowd. After the premiere, the director, producer Morgan Spurlock, Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir all appeared on stage to do a song and take questions.

What Would Jesus Buy is a very funny film with a very serious subject (following in the same sort of path blazed by Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me). The film follows the choir while it tours America between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Both the film and Rev. Billy ask Americans to re-examine their values and really the true meaning of Christmas (and Christianity in America) which should be about God's presence in the world, helping the needy, and loving those close to you. The film implies that in today's America people use Christmas to try to buy love with material gifts rather than to really demonstrate true love to their family and friends. Unfortunately, Christmas has become a celebration not of Christianity, but of America's true religious pagan secular materialism.

The film also takes on the American corporations that exploit Christmas buy selling us junk we don't need. It shows how many Americans are addicted to credit card debt. In particular it takes on Disney and Wal-Mart. It specifically points out the harm done by buying stuff at Wal-Mart that was made by kids working in sweatshops at slave wages in the Third World. It also showed how Wal-Mart undermines local businesses and how Disney markets a world of fantasy and illusion. It does all of in a very humorous manner through satirical singing of Christmas songs and attempting to show people the destructive nature of consumerism. The film is an effective message film with an important lesson that Americans need to hear.

Sometimes the film seemed to bury its message under so much humor that the message seemed to get a little lost amidst the attempt to entertain. It also tended to offer a lot more of a critique of globalization and consumerism without really offering clear answers or solutions. Finally, I think its fair to wonder how effective Rev. Billy's techniques are. Most of the spectators watching their antics looked more befuddled and confused than they did convinced by their message.

Nevertheless, despite these weakness, this is an excellent and important film and I hope that many Americans get a chance to view it and learn from it. It raises more questions than it answers, but just starting a discussion of consumerism would be a step in the right direction.

Incidentally, folks who like this film should also check out the 2006 film (now on DVD) "Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We'll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren" in which Rev. Billy also appears in a cameo role. It links consumerism to American politics and notes the absurdity that after 9/11 Americans were told that the answer to terrorism was to go shopping or the terrorists would win. Both films approach similar issues in humorous ways.

Bill Talen is wacko! This consumer-activist movie was way funnier than I expected. i went because the issue of celebrating Christmas by shopping is one i relate to. Talen's performance-art shtick acting like a Pentacostal preacher did not bother my Christian sensibilities at all, but there were some pieces of chapter-title artwork that blew my mind: the Holy Mother presenting the Christ Child with a tickle-me-Elmo? They were hysterical, creative, topical, surprising, and provocative in the best way. Some went by fast and I'll have to wait for the DVD release to examine them more carefully. (What WAS that demon doing to those poor doomed shoppers anyway?) Full of great interviews, informative "reporting", and Billy's bizarre antics made this way more entertaining than expected. Enjoy!

I am not typically a man who posts reviews of films. In fact, this is my first. But after catching What Would Jesus Buy in the Village last night, I was particularly inspired. This is a great film; well-captured, well-edited, and loaded with moments of unconscionable hilarity. Reverend Billy is both a brilliant pitchman and a devoted activist, and after viewing it, I couldn't agree with his message more. With the holiday season fast approaching, I think you owe it to yourself to learn about the culture of greed that drives our unstoppable shopping, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a better way to do that than viewing this film.

This is a giddy,goofy little film with a vital message....ease back on the excessive consumerism. Reverend Billy (Bill Talen) is a performance artist that looks a bit like Elvis with a blonde Pompadour & delivers his messages much like one of those old time fire & brimstone preachers. The only thing is that instead of pounding Jesus down every body's throats (much like the Baptists do), Rev. Billy speaks out against the dangers of shopping. He takes his wife (who wears several hats as director of the performances,choir master,etc.)& his congregation on the road to speak out. A myriad of things happen on the road:some good,others not so good. One of the high points of the film comes when Rev.Billy & company go to Disneyland & manage to touch more than their share of raw nerves there. It kind of reminded me of that sequence in Terry Gilliam's 'Fear & Loathing In Los Vegas',when Hunter Thompson (Johnny Depp)drops acid at a casino in Vegas that resembles a circus (get the picture?). I'm told that there is another documentary about Reverend Billy out there. If the fates are good, perhaps I'll get to peruse that one,as well. CAVAET FOR THE BIBLE THUMPERS:Although religion isn't really slammed in Talen's performances,this film could be offensive to any & all fundamentalist Christians that are satire challenged and/or humour impared (in short:any body that wields religion as a weapon of mass destruction..please stay away from this film, so the rest of us can have a good laugh without fear of you going postal in the cinema during a screening of this very funny film)

While this film has amusing and humorous elements, it is NOT a comedy and to call it one is to delegitimize it. This documentary explores the commercialization of the Christmas tradition, which it rightly concludes has lost most of its spiritual meaning in favor of gift giving and the shopping that precedes it. The film further engages the viewer to consider the possibility that this obsession with commercialization bleeds into everyday life.

While many of the points are made by examining the sermons of the dubiously respectable self-styled "Reverend Billy" and his Church of Stop Shopping, which often makes for laughs, to say it is a comedy does not do it justice. This is a true documentary about a true phenomenon in America and a political organization that seeks to challenge it.