What Would Jesus Buy Analysis

The video ‘What Would Jesus Buy’ is about a performance activist group, The Stop Shopping Choir, which denounces consumerism. They encourage people to be more conscious of their shopping habits and how it affects people all over the world. Reverend Billy, the organizer of this group, argues that overconsumption and debt will bring about the end of humankind. He refers to this idea as the ‘Shopocalypse’. The group is particularly active during the holiday season because of the commercialism and consumerism now associated with this time of year. Billy and his choir often protest at malls and shopping centers to persuade people to stop shopping and to develop more conscious shopping habits. The film focuses on the commercialization of Christmas and the business practices of …show more content…
The media is monopolized by a core group of corporations, the elite, that control what is being advertised and the information we are given. These advertisements manipulate us into accepting that we, the proletariat, must consume. For example, companies introduce new products every year to devalue the ones that we currently own and convince us that we have to have the newest one. Economists refer to this as planned obsolescence because it makes older products seem out of date and essentially useless (Grazian, 2010, p.61). We are given the illusion of choice when multiple brands release new products. However, material choice is not a real concept; most companies are owned by larger conglomerates. An example of this illusion of choice is the Walt Disney Company. Aside from the theme parks and resorts owned by the company, Disney also owns ABC studios and the ABC Television Network, ESPN, Lifetime, and the Disney Channel (Grazian, 2010, p. 52). Each channel provides different programming and targets a different audience, however, the conglomerate monopolizes ad-space and defines what we are exposed