What Would Jesus Buy?: A Review

Morgan Spurlock’s film What Would Jesus Buy? is a documentary based on America’s obsession with consumerism, especially during the Christmas Holidays. It follows an anti-shopping activist known as Reverend Billy of the “Church of Stop Shopping” and his “choir” as they travel all over the nation in order to warn consumers of the evils of shopping. Overall I thought that the message behind all the madness in this film was a good one, but it was presented in such a diluted, radical way as to render it nearly completely ineffective. It is a no new idea that people should stop spending so much money around Christmas time, and the “Reverend” Billy did not present many new reasons to stop this fad. His radical approach to this protest is enough to scare away any potential “followers.” Reverend Billy failed to use the most simple and effective arguments for his cause, effectively foiling his campaign.

In order to avoid going into a repression, people in an economy must buy things. Where the economy starts hurting is when customers begin spending money that they don’t have. This was one of the film’s main arguments about why consumers should try and spend less at Christmas. Constant repetition of facts and figures about consumers in debt and how many people go into debt during the holidays pervaded throughout the majority of the film. This information alone will most likely not change the way people shop, especially around the holidays. If stopping someone’s compulsive shopping was as easy as warning someone they might go into debt, then Reverend Billy would have had all his work done for him already.

Another important argument against shopping was not completely anti-shopping. Reverend Billy and the Stop-Shopping Choir argued that buying from large corporations such as Disney and Wal-Mart is much worse than buying goods made in America. This is because of the, essentially, slave labor that is used by forcing third world countries to work for these corporations. This by itself is a good message. Reverend Billy gets himself into trouble by singling out large corporations. I am all for the reduction of goods made in sweatshops, but if the name of the “Church” is “The Church of Stop Shopping” shouldn’t the message they are preaching be “Stop Shopping” and not “Stop Shopping at Wal-Mart?” By saying that the reason people shouldn’t buy so much during the holidays is to stop big companies from using sweatshops is hypocritical and downright anti-Christmas.

Reverend Billy makes his biggest mistake by not using the most obvious arguments for his cause. He is pretending to be a Reverend and in doing so he should come across as religious but he never once mentions anything about the Christmas Holiday. Christmas is a holiday celebrating the beginning of a religion, and the birth of a savior. Not once does Reverend Billy make reference to the Christmas Story. That should have been his main argument throughout his entire campaign. He also fails to mention anything about how today Christmas is celebrated by not just Christians, but by atheists, agnostics and others in between. This could have furthered his argument by trying to create a distinction between those celebrating Christmas for its true meaning and those following a fad.

Another mistake that Reverend Billy made and continues to make is that he is making a mockery of the Christian religion. Impersonating a member of the clergy, using terms such as “Amen, Hallelujah, and Thank the Lord” can easily be construed as condescending. In theory, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, the good reverend should have focused on targeting Christians. If someone was walking down the street and saw someone dressed up as someone from their religion, dancing around, yelling, pretending to baptize infants, and exorcise billboards, I am sure they would instantly be appalled and turned off to any potential message coming from the impersonator.

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping may have had good intentions in this documentary but by not using the logical arguments for their cause and potentially insulting many of their ideal targeted audience they render any message they were trying to send as pointless. In general, radical enthusiasm is met with hostility and fear, even if the message trying to be made is sound. Reverend Billy also comes across as slightly hypocritical by saying his is anti-shopping, and then merely focusing on exposing large corporations. It is as if the original plan was for a documentary against large corporations and reducing consumerism in America but at the last second, the idea of Christmas was slapped on. Perhaps a more accurate title for this film would have been, “Why Jesus Wouldn’t Have Liked Wal-mart.”