The Best Musical Since A Chorus Line?
David Weigel | December 21, 2007, 3:19pm
If Shawn Macomber
can be trusted, it's
Walmartopia.
Walmartopia begins with Vicki Latrell, a present day single mom, working at Wal-Mart with her sassy teenage daughter, waiting on that ever-elusive promotion. Whether Vicki fails to climb the management ladder as a result of Wal-Mart’s patriarchal power structure, or because whenever her manager leaves the sales floor she stops working to belt out songs Aretha Franklin-style while her chronically tardy teenage daughter idly complains their boss is a “creepy Christian crypto-fascist,” isn’t clear.
Yes, yes, it sounds like
Marc Blitzstein was cryogenically frozen and forced to write a "contemporary" play by blinking his eyelids. Read on.
Alas, the gang that couldn’t sweep straight stumbles into a presentation by an evil scientist who has found a hole in the time-space continuum allowing Wal-Mart execs to see future consumer trends. Sam Walton’s reanimated, discombobulated head—don’t ask—orders the Latrells thrown into the time warp.
The Latrells land in a neon future dystopia that makes Blade Runner and THX 1138 look like The Adventures of Milo and Otis. The aforementioned mindless automaton population marches in lockstep singing refrains such as “We were born to consume/from the cradle to the tomb.” Wal-Art puts on pro-consumer productions like The Phantom of the Mart School-Mart teaches kids to “shop, stock and mop.” Walton’s head, not Rupert Murdoch, provides the daily propaganda now, while Security-Mart runs the police state and Prison-Mart. Given the milieu, it’s a safe bet to say Social Security has also been privatized.
Buy your tickets
here. Only nine days left!
GILMORE | December 21, 2007, 4:08pm | #
...an evil scientist who has found a hole in the time-space continuum allowing Wal-Mart execs to see future consumer trends
Thats funny. Thats pretty close to my job description.
You dont need a time hole to know that
a) people will be older on average
b) gas will be more expensive, people will shorten distances traveled for shopping
c) more people will be speaking spanish
d) household sizes will be smaller
e) Wal Mart will be offering much more Healthcare and Financial Services
f) the Chinese will PWN us!
har. Last one i made up. Who knows...
I fucking hate progressives and their whole "commerce is the root of all evil!" idiocy. Seriously. They all either slept through economics 101, or just misunderstood everything they even tried to pay attention to. Their whole political position is based exclusively on narcissistic self reflection on what they think it means to be a "good, moral" person. According to their fucked up logic, good people eat organic dirt from their own backyard, make wheatgrass juice to drive their electric scooter, use their savings to pay reparations for the trail of tears, and moan about how BAAAAAD the Capitalists have made the world, and wouldnt it be awesome if we were all like Bantu tribesman only like vegan and didnt mutilate woman's genitals, although, hey, you know it's like culturally relative.
Ok, maybe thats a bit much. But not far from the essence of it.
By contrast, we're "capitalist fascists" for understanding that low prices are actually a benefit. At least thats how much they misunderstand libertarian thinking.
The thing that kills me the most about them is that nearly every suggested 'solution' they have to their false dystopian view of the world actually would do more to make things FAR WORSE according to their own measure of good-bad. The law of unintended consequences doesnt even apply with them = everything they want to do actually works directly against their own stated 'goals'.
"more democracy"!! they scream, while asking the government to control everything from GMOs to making sure news is "fair" (i.e. must have 50/50 POV for 'balance')
God they drive me up the wall
