Customer Reviews

What Would Jesus Buy?

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4 star:		(7)
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I was able to see this film already and it is a hilarious yet serious take on overconsumption in America. Reverend Billy and his choir stop at shopping malls across the country from New York to California to sing songs and confront consumerism with a feel reminiscent to the Borat movie. It's a quasi-documentary and should be viewed by everyone in this country. There are only a few interviews with experts on consumerism but this movie is a good starting point for further research on consumerism. It is light enough to be enjoyed by children yet enlightening for adults as well. Hopefull the DVD will feature heavier bonus content that adds to the issue at hand. Scenes at the Mall of America, Disneyland, and carolling about consumption to wealthy families are not to be missed!! See it.

Last Fall, when this movie was in the theaters, I asked my 18-year-old daughter to join me, as a special favor. She went to please her mother, not because she really thought it would be good. After all, it had "Jesus" in the title, and my Sunday-school-raised child had long since decided that church and Jesus wasn't really for her. Well, she (and I) laughed heartily at this movie, many times, as it also seriously convicted us, challenged us to evaluate our spending. My daughter is now looking forward to sharing this film with friends. She wants to have friends over to the house to view it. It's been 6 months since we watched it, and thoughts of seeing it again brings forth laughter and reminders to be aware of our spending habits, our wants and our perceived "needs." This film touches on all ages -- children, teens and adults, challenging everyone to take a serious look at their motivations. Hooray for those that have the courage to point out how extreme our consumerism has gone.

Rev. Billy and his traveling gospel choir from the Church of Stop Shopping bring up a lot of questions which they cannot necessarily answer, but the point is to allow us to ponder those questions and decide how we might change our ways.

With his loud, outrageous and daring antics, Billy invades Disney store, Starbucks, Disneyland and various American cities and malls as he crusades for an end to the shopping frenzies and consumerism that have taken over the lives of too many Americans--especially during the Christmas season. It's not possible to know how many people he has influenced or if they are really thinking about what he's saying, but perhaps he will simply need to do this every year until more people start listening.

The questions are: why do we think we must shop till we drop for Christmas? Why do we go into debt this way? What makes us think our kids will love us only if we bombard them with toys and the latest electronics? Who really believes that if we don't shop and spend, the terrorists will win? Why do we buy products that we know were made in third world sweatshops by kids? Why are we so obsessed with brand names and designer labels?

And what would Jesus buy? I don't think he would buy anything. He would give of himself, sacrifice, spend time with others, and not be concerned at all with any selfish desires.

This is worth a viewing and some pondering.

Join Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they exorcise the spiritual powers of compulsive consumption. Bill Talen left San Francisco where he was a talented actor and found his true calling when he landed in New York City's Time Square. There he began his warnings about the "shopocalypse" that pedals endless credit and lands us in eternal debt. Reverend Billy dons a white tux and a faux clerical collar for his street theater -- preaching in Starbucks or prophesying against billion dollar corporate profits built on the backs of Bangladeshi children who sew our clothes for seven cents an hour. Most of this documentary follows the Reverend and his choir as they tour America in two junker buses the month before Christmas 2005. You can imagine the sacred shrines they visit on this anti-pilgrimage, including the Mall of America, the headquarters of Wal-Mart, the Las Vegas strip, and the ultimate virtual reality on Christmas Day -- Disneyland, home of the antichrist, Mickey Mouse. The film interviews shopoholics and cultural critics alike (Jim Wallis, Bill McKibben, Andrew Young). Produced by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), this creative social satire would be great for family viewing.

When I bought this film I was looking forward to a comedy. As I watched it I kept waiting to laugh, but felt more depressed with every scene. Yes, Rev. Billy is funny and the theatrics are entertaining, but the vignettes of Third World sweat shops similar to those used by Walmart and Disney Corporation made it hard to enjoy. It makes you stop and think.

For years we have been shown starving children on late night TV and have been asked to contribute pennies a day to feed them. Unfortunately we never addressed their governments failure to take care of their own. I guess they didn't have weapons of mass destruction...other than hunger..so why bother?? Our American corporations, on the other hand, appear to have taken careful notes on these countries. They saw $$$ on swollen bellies and drawn faces, an untapped labor market in a country that had few expectations of them. These once hungry children aren't much better off today. Yes they eat, but they still have no health care and work 16 hours days for pennies. Their work was once our work. They have taken manufacturing jobs that once fed American families. Those same families, many now struggling, go to Walmart and other discount houses to purchase the things they once made. If there is any poetic justice in this it is that we are now forced to realize the true value of being "our brother's keeper."

I enjoyed this, but the first copy didn't have the audio in synch with the video. So don't let it sit around without checking that first!

It wasn't quite what I thought. It's an "on-the-road" documentary in the style of Michael Moore. It's more ironic than laugh out loud funny.

The Reverend Billy is clearly a man on a mission: namely, to convince American consumers to tear up their credit cards and stop shopping. Since the Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil, the right good reverend has taken it upon himself to preach the gospel of No Shopping to a world drowning in a sea of Madison Avenue marketing and debt. His congregation even calls itself the Church of Stop Shopping, and every Christmas season, his devoted flock fans out to local malls and shopping centers to preach against the evils of consumerism and to lead exhausted and beleaguered shoppers to redemption.

Rob VanAlkemade's "What Would Jesus Buy?" is a lively and colorful documentary that follows the CCS and its leader as they travel around the country spreading the word to the masses. In the prologue, we're informed that, whereas America "used to be a nation of producers, now we're a nation of consumers." Our savings rate stands at zero, as we groan under mounds of ever-increasing personal debt. Psychologists, in fact, estimate that 15 million Americans may be "clinically addicted" to shopping, and we're told that the nation's citizens spend five times more time shopping in stores (and now on the internet) than praying in church.

This is the situation that Reverend Billy is hell-bent on rectifying. Part religious zealot and part crowd-pleasing showman, Revered Billy is in the time-honored tradition of all those big-haired, fire-and-brimstone preachers who stand on street corners or in the pulpits of churches thunderously decrying the evils of the world and offering personal salvation - only, in his case, it's salvation from the demonic forces of wanton spending. Combining a social message with street-theater and performance art antics like singing anti-commercial Christmas carols to bemused and befuddled audiences, Reverend Billy and his minions have been arrested numerous times for invading retail stores in an attempt to bring a halt to the commerce taking place within them. At one point, they even mount an assault on the nation's ultimate shoppers' Mecca, the Mall of America, where countless pilgrims go every year to bow down and worship the almighty god of consumerism. But Reverend Billy saves his greatest opprobrium for the Walt Disney Corporation, which he sees as a false god - even going so far as refer to Mickey Mouse as his own personal antichrist - dedicated to making money at any cost, including exploiting underpaid workers in Third World countries. The movie also slams what has come to be known as the "Walmart-ization" of America, as more and more mom-and-pop retailers are driven out of business by massive corporations whose sole concern is the bottom line and, thus, have no qualms about shipping many of their jobs overseas.

This affectionate, humor-filled movie makes us complicit in the group's actions, which means we also get to be present for those rare moments of quiet reflection when the participants question just how many people they are actually converting to their creed. But far more often, we see how nothing - not overzealous security forces, not unresponsive crowd, not even a serious bus accident (at which we are present) - can dampen their commitment to their cause.

Of course, the movie, in its passion and zeal for Reverend Billy and what he is advocating, neglects to address the rather obvious counterargument that if people were to stop shopping entirely - especially at Christmas - the economy might come to a screeching halt, resulting in far-reaching harmful consequences for the nation as a whole.

Still, it's hard not to buy at least some of what "What Would Jesus Buy?" is selling.

This movie contains power, life-changing message about consumerism. When my family (teens too) watched it the first time over a year ago, it made our family re-think Christmas/ society norms and changed our traditions - bringing them back to the true meaning of Christmas. Scenes from the movie will stick in your mind, especially while you are shopping. I bought this one to share with friends.

This is a very funny and entertaining movie, with an important message. I plan on showing this to all my friends before they go out and get sucked up into the frenzy of the debt cycle. Watch this and give the gift of your time and your love, rather than the fraud of materialism and debt which has nothing to do with the true meaning of Christmas.

What Would Jesus Buy? is an outstanding documentary of the very creative--and confrontational--tactics of "Reverend" Billy (Bill Talen). He organizes a gospel-style singing choir called the Church of Stop Shopping; and they perform songs and go on a major cross country bus tour to challenge people to re-think their attitudes about shopping in general--and especially to reevaluate the value of frenzied holiday shopping which pushes aside the real meaning of Christmas. The documentary flows at a very good pace; and I was never bored--their story is remarkable, true and rather dramatic. The cinematography is very professional and I felt that I was with them and knew what their experiences were like as I watched this DVD.

For the better part of the film the focus is on two subjects. To a lesser degree, we meet several people who have spent so much that one of them can max out a new credit card in just one day and not show very real concern about it; and we meet a woman who has incredible amounts of clothing--for her Chihuahua. There are teens confessing that they'll be ostracized in school if they don't wear the latest fashion trends; and one woman uses Reverend Billy's mobile "confessional" booth to tell him how she had to destroy an article of clothing in a store dressing room because once she tried so hard to fit into it she couldn't get it off! She goes on to say that she couldn't go back into the store--where she shopped every day--unless she hid the fact that she couldn't fit into a dress, and having to destroy the dress just to remove it wasn't too much fun for her, either.

However, the principle focus of the film is the group's one month cross country journey to go into shopping malls and ring people's doorbells to alert them to the "Shopocalypse." For Reverend Billy and his followers the "Shopocalypse" comes when there's so much spending just before Christmastime that the rate of spending is irresponsible and threatens to destroy the true meaning of Christmas. Reverend Billy and the chorus hit the road in a rather old bus; and it is indeed ironic that the one road accident that befalls them happens when a truck rushing to get Christmas merchandise to stores rams into the back of their bus. Fortunately, no one gets hurt too badly and after a day or two they go on their way.

But the culmination of the one month tour (which ends on Christmas Day in Disneyland) may have some consequences. In fact, just making it to their destination may have some problems for them. While they get some calm conversation time with a local merchant whose business has been ruined by Walmart, the group's appearances at several Walmart stores, a number of Starbucks franchises and The Mall of America are not exactly welcome. No spoilers here--watch and find out what happens!

The DVD comes with some nice extras. We see footage of their "send-off" concert in Saint Mark's Church in Manhattan; there's a public access revival television spot made by Reverend Billy; and we learn the pitiful story of how China jailed a young woman for two years--all for the crime of being Christian. I also like the footage from their stop at a post office in Pennsylvania, too.

What Would Jesus Buy may have been produced, shown in theaters and put on DVD before this huge recession started and spending did slow down, but the concept of getting people to shop less and be more fiscally responsible is timeless. For example, younger people on college campuses are easily lured into credit cards with high interest rates if they don't pay their bills in full right away; many of these people don't understand the real responsibilities of having a credit card--it creates a bill that you DO have to pay. In addition, I strongly agree with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping that people have become so enamored with shopping that the true meaning of Christmas is in very real danger of being forgotten. I highly recommend this film.