| December 10, 2005 Black Friday at the Mall of America by Katy Parrish, insurgent49 
This Thanksgiving, my son and I traveled to Minneapolis to share dinner
with my uncle and his family for the first time ever. While eating our
turkey, Wilson and I were informed that the family was going to the
mall on Friday. We looked at each other and rolled our eyes. A
flash of activist brilliance washed over me and I whispered to Wilson,
“We can go and capture video of the buying frenzy for a
documentary on Buy Nothing Day and distribute Deception Dollars to
unsuspecting shoppers.” He smirked while I breathed a sigh of
anticipatory mischief.The Mall of America is the largest mall in the country. According to the web site, it occupies 4.2 million square feet with 2.5 million of that available for leasing. There are over 520 stores, 86 facilities serving food, 14 movies screens and over 12,000 parking spaces. Mall of America is large enough to hold thirty-two 747s or seven Yankee Stadiums. “If a shopper spent 10 minutes browsing at every store, it would take them more than 86 hours to complete their visit to Mall of America. Mall of America contributes more than $1.8 billion in economic impact activity annually to the state of Minnesota.” To me, the Mall of America is the ultimate symbol of a society manipulated by corporate greed with the grand illusion that if you buy more, regardless of the amount of real cash in your wallet, you will be a better American. Wilson and I entered the Mall of America through the second floor Nordstrom at 9:30 a.m. on Black Friday. Sporting a jacket bearing a corporate television logo given to him as a gift, Wilson started filming immediately. We were in the professional women’s clothing area and started documenting prices for items. A basic, wool blazer (really – there was nothing special except maybe the label, which I don’t pay attention to) was priced at $745.00. The blouse paired with it was going for $245.00. The leather jacket a rack away would run your plastic up to $995.00. While we were filming, a hip, twenty something sales clerk abruptly informed us we could not be videotaping in the store. Wilson looked up and defiantly questioned her, “Why can’t we film? We are the media! We can film anywhere!” She firmly stated that because Nordstrom did not have control over the final “product”, she was going to have to ask us to leave if we continued filming. So, we captured images of lavish displays on our way out, while dropping Deception Dollars in strategic locations around the store. 
Armed with the cameras and a sense of purpose, we forged on, capturing
footage and images of huge decorations adorning the common spaces,
risqué displays marketing whatever your heart desired and
shoppers wandering from store to store with blank, anxious stares.
Security guards were visible on every floor, usually working in groups
of three. I diligently observed the method people were using to purchase their gifts. Nine out ten shoppers were using credit cards. Ultimately, we got kicked out of five stores. Wilson reported his favorite expulsion started when a mini-skirt clad (with leather boots to her knees), red & black haired punk clerk from Hot Topic stuck her mini t-shirt breasts right into the lens, covering his view finder with her hand. In a butch monotone, she ordered, “You can’t do that here.” We stopped taping and entered another store. Wilson reported later that, “She was hot.” (Great. I thought, as my motherly heart skipped a beat with his candid revelation.) My favorite t-shirt spotted there was a Green Day Band shirt, colored khaki green, and stenciled with a grenade, plus words simply saying, “Stupid American.” On one end of the mall, a lone pianist played Christmas carols. At the other end, a full stage of hip hop artists were performing to a crowd of teens and tired shoppers. You can take a nap if you need to in MinnaNAPolis Power Nap Suites, where you are welcomed to a world of dreams. In the middle of the mall is Camp Snoopy, where you can bring your hyper-stimulated children to an indoor amusement park, complete with a roller coaster, water rides and a Ferris Wheel. So, after dragging your kids over 2 miles in a crowded mall to languish in long lines to buy stuff, and filling them up with fast food, you can watch them puke all over Snoopy. And then there were the anorexic Victoria’s Secret mannequins, spreading their legs around black boxes right before you entered Camp Snoopy. The marquee on the windows read, “Push Up Without Padding.” So while the kids are puking, dad can fantasize about his wife or whomever (maybe a mannequin) wearing a sweet little nothing, hastily making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Sweet.  According to a perky coffee clerk, the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. It is named that because shoppers spend enough money on that one day to shift retailers into the black for the entire year. But to me, Black Friday should be known as the day Americans go into more debt to buy things they don’t need, resulting in more family stress and potentially decreasing their lifespans.  I honor the simple tradition of
Buy Nothing Day after Thanksgiving. Started by Adbusters (www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/
), Buy Nothing Day encourages people to opt out of the buying
frenzy typically associated with Christmas in America. They
highlight many creative things we can do over the holiday season that
encourage spending time with family and friends and letting go of the
decades of conditioning we have endured to spend, spend, spend. This year, activists from Anchorage were featured in the highlights of 2005 section. According to the website, a small group of activists braving the cold passed out t-shirts that read “I’m a corporate whore” and handmade earrings to local shoppers while singing Buy Nothing carols outside the Fifth Avenue Mall. Right on! Besides getting kicked out of the shops, one of the main highlights of our morning spent at the Mall of America happened when we rounded the corner of the third floor escalator and spotted a young woman filming the Snoopy Ferris Wheel. I motioned to Wilson, “Dude, let’s go introduce ourselves.” It turns out that Cory works for Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and she was there capturing video for a new movie he is working on about Christmas in America. Wilson eyed her camera and asked gear-head questions about it. She shared her satisfaction with the Berkeley Film Program and offered to hook him up with a local video documentary geek for a field trip (next visit). I got to witness my son meet a delightful person, with a similar passion, show a genuine interest in sharing information with him. Ambushed on the way out of the chaos, Grandma delayed our exit by getting permission for Wilson to video the new chocolate fountains being displayed at a specialty kitchen store. Watching the shoppers stand in a long line to pay for gadgets while tasting homemade chocolate covered marshmallows, I paced near the high priced marmalades and Mojito mix. Exiting the parking garage, family members chatted about what good deals they got, reveled in their post shopping adrenaline and then asked us what we bought. Wilson and I smiled at each other, and proudly exclaimed, “Nothing.” Katy Parrish is a freelance writer and media activist who can be reached at takebackthemedia@hotmail.com. |
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| Copyright
2005
Insurgent Media. All Rights
Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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