A bunch of fat millionaires and the weasels on Madison Avenue that they pay very well have duped hundreds of millions of people around the world into accepting that the real holiday to treasure in November occurs the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday, they call it. Meaning, of course, that the losers who run their businesses into the ground for eleven months out of the year get their bottom line out of the red and into the black by convincing those millions to spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.
Another name for Black Friday is one you will not hear on the television newscasts covering this faux holiday: Buy Nothing Day. Since the “journalists” reporting on Black Friday like it was a real holiday are dependent upon you buying things the day after Thanksgiving, you can understand why you aren’t aware of Buy Nothing Day. Want to avoid irritable salespeople working for zillionaires who force their employees to work on Thanksgiving while they themselves are sipping champagne at their summer home in the tropics? Then stay on home on Buy Nothing Day and watch these wonderful movies that get it. Oh, and it goes without saying: don’t buy anything the day after Thanksgiving.
Dawn of the Dead
The original “Dawn of the Dead” remains the quintessential zombie movie because it equates the mindlessness of the horde seeking brains for sustenance with the mindless pursuit of consumerism. You never really know exactly why zombies need brains nor exactly how it figures into their existence; all we’ve been told is that they do need brains for survival. Just like you’ve been told you need the latest iPhone or a 70 inch TV screen or, amazingly, a $2000 purse! If you have ever spent more than $50 on a purse, you don’t need to worry about becoming a zombie. You’re already there, lady.
Fight Club
Saddening though it may be that there has developed a trend toward selling merchandise associated with David Fincher’s movie, “Fight Club” remains by the greatest mainstream commercial for Buy Nothing Day that has yet to be produced. “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [stuff] we don’t need.” Amen, brother Durden.
Weekend
Or, pretty much any movie made by Jean-Luc Godard. But most of the really hardcore Godard films that are appropriate for Buy Nothing Day are going to turn off an American audience lulled into anti-socialist stupidity by what passes for a liberal media. Stick with “Weekend” since at least there is the appearance of a narrative storyline with which those buying those big flat-screen televisions to watch Michael Bay epics will relate.
