Taking on Christmas Consumerism

Dec. 4, 2007 — -- Feeling the stress of Christmas shopping yet? Made your list and checked it twice?

Despite predictions of a downturn in the economy, Americans are expected to spend about $475 billion on Christmas this year, and be half way to next Christmas before they've paid it off. For example, take Minnesota's mammoth Mall of America. Millions are expected to visit this shopping mecca during the holidays, all searching for the perfect gift.

But one man who won't be hitting the malls is Bill Talen. He's on a mission to put an end to what he says are the excesses of Christmas consumerism.

Talen is part activist, part performance artist, but this time of year, he takes on the full-time persona of his alter-ego: the Rev. Billy -- leader of the fictional Church of Stop Shopping. For the last 10 years, he's spent his holidays railing against the evils of consumerism. Despite his contrarian views, he insists he is not the Grinch.

"I think the commercial Christmas has become the Grinch," Talen said. "Polls indicate that most Americans now think of Christmas with dread rather than happy anticipation, and that is sad."

In a new movie provocatively titled "What Would Jesus Buy?" Talen, his wife, Savitra D, and the members of the Stop Shopping Choir travel cross-country to lead shoppers out of the "evils" of the mall and into the promised land of decreased consumerism.

"We decided to go out there for a month and just go into those traffic jams and preach to people," Talen said. "We call that traffic jamming, amen."

Talen's message and his acolytes are not exactly welcome everywhere credit cards are accepted. In the documentary, Talen gets kicked out of a Starbucks, performs an "exorcism" at Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas and gets arrested at a Disney store in Times Square. Talen estimates that his antics have gotten him arrested 40 to 50 times.

The film's producer, Morgan Spurlock -- who also produced (and ate his way through) the 2004 Oscar nominated film "Supersize Me" -- said Talen uses humor to make people think twice about their holiday shopping. "He uses the character of Rev. Billy to make us laugh and make us look at really important things," Spurlock said, adding that "if you can make somebody laugh, you can make somebody listen."