Shopocolypse

After this morning's robust retail sales report, maybe we should all have a look at Morgan Spurlock's latest offering, What Would Jesus Buy?

From the Wikipedia entry:

The film focuses on the issues of the commercialization of Christmas, materialism, the over-consumption in American culture, globalization, and the business practices of large corporations, as well as their economic and cultural effects on American society, as seen through the prism of activist/performance artist Bill Talen, who goes by the alias of "Reverend Billy," and his troupe of activists, whose street theater performances take the form of a church choir called "The Church of Stop Shopping," that sings anti-shopping and anti-corporate songs.

[And you thought some of my sentences went on and on ...]

Having achieved his first national notoriety with the ground-breaking 2004 documentary Super Size Me and, more recently, with the excellent 30 Days series on FX, the independent film maker now strikes at the heart of the American way of life as we currently know it.

A few more links:

• What Would Jesus Buy? - Official Website
• Church of Stop Shopping - Official Website of Reverand Billy
• What Would Jesus Buy? - IMDB
• Taking on Christmas Consumerism - Nightline

It's funny how, in order to get any attention at all, this subject matter has to be packaged in a way that somehow appeals to the public, who might then watch the trailer or read a movie review, realize the truth that it contains, and then go on borrowing money to buy even more stuff that they don't need.