Yes Men and Punk

The Yes Men and the punk movement both used their appearances as means of expressing there opinions. In the case of the Yes Men, Andy and Mike use a very professional appearance to convince people that they are in fact representatives of the World Trade Organization. After doing so, they use the ethos they built up using their professional looking website and the beginnings of their presentations, to express their beliefs against the WTO. Using ridiculous outfits, such as the leisure suit, and by presenting ideas that are absolutely ridiculous in a totally serious manner they give the WTO a reputation of putting money over people, a reputation that they claim is entirely truthful. However, other than their presentation in Australia, I didn’t see much evidence that the WTO is the organization they portray it to be. This is definitely understandable in their presentation of the WTO, but I would think the documentary itself would have more evidence. Finally, what is most impressive is how they were able to pull all of this off. All the travelling and time they put into it must have cost a lot of money. Sure they were asked to do this by some organizations but it still is pretty unbelievable.

As for the punk movement, I definitely agree that appearance is a means of expression. However, sometimes it goes a little too far. One example of this is how they mentioned that some punks would wear swastikas for their shock value not as a symbol of their beliefs. I think this is inappropriate, even if it does protest against the societal norms of being proper, which is their goal. However, it does hurt their ethos as people will focus more on thinking that they are anti-Semitic instead of thinking that they are challenging societal norms. Also, as with most trends in fashion, once it gains popularity you end up getting a lot of posers who simply dress like it because they are popular. I think these two things hurt their overall hurt their overall cause, as their message is never really clearly stated or understood.