Film includes Yes Men's post-Katrina pranks in New Orleans

From The Times-Picayune

by Dave Walker, TV columnist, The Times-Picayune

Anyone familiar with The Yes Men's act by now should know that "Oh, no!" is the only appropriate reaction to their arrival on any scene.
That, and running for the nearest exit.
Especially if you're a public figure. Extra-especially if you're a corporate chieftain or the underling charged with protecting him or her (but usually it's a him).

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In the film, The Yes Men say that they make their entree into spoofy situations by posting fake Web sites and then waiting for conference organizers to invite them to speak.

That doesn't appear to be how they got to a 2006 conference in New Orleans, where their act fooled Mayor Ray Nagin, then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco and a big room full of rebuilding contractors.

They came then as subs for Alphonso Jackson, who was then secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a key player in New Orleans' recovery.

The Yes Men's fake announcement at the gathering reversed HUD's actual policy at the time and reopened the city's public housing developments to residents. Also announced was a multibillion-dollar effort by oil companies to fund the rebuilding of Louisiana's coastal wetlands.

Reporters in the room -- WWL-radio's Dave Cohen is pictured as most forceful in debunking The Yes Men trickery -- weren't fooled, but the damage was done.

And kept getting done later at another Yes Men-staged event at one of the city's shuttered public housing developments.

OK, so the wetlands situation deserves all the attention it can get, and the film might be helpful to anyone in HBO's national audience who is new to the issue.

The debate over public housing in New Orleans is lot more complicated than it's depicted in this film, though, and satire, however sharply composed, doesn't ever really fix very much.

The Yes Men Fix the World Today, 8 p.m., HBO

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