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What is a Whirl-Mart?
The action is comprised of a group of anti-shoppers ranging in size from 1 to 50 members. The ritual consists of activists/actors arriving at a Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us or another chain superstore at 12-noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month and proceeding to push empty shopping carts slowly and silently through the aisles. Eventually, all of the participants locate one another and form a single-file chain of anti-shoppers which weaves, wanders, and whirls throughout the store for about an hour. It is a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling. It is a symbolic display of the will to resist the capitalist ideology.
'Whirl-Mart' is an experiment that can be approached from several different angles. As a work of art, it examines and blurs the boundaries that have been established between performance art, protest, living sculpture, and direct action. As an action of resistance, it utilizes the power of silence in occupying private consumer-dominated space with a symbolic spectacle. As a ceremony, it is a counter-ritual to shopping that transforms the super-store and its wall-to-wall array of products into a surreal and colorful cathedral. And what the heck-- it's just darned fun!
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Wal-Mart sells 25 percent of the computer and video games purchased
annually in the United States, a share worth $1.58 billion in 2001,
according to the Interactive Digital Software Association and
NPDFunworld, the industry's data clearinghouse.
With that kind of clout, the discount retailer can exercise
considerable influence over the kinds of titles that find their way
into consumers' hands, simply by determining what goes on its shelves.
Since 2000, the chain has blocked sales of mature-rated titles to
minors, as defined by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. An M
rating means a title is not recommended for children ages 16 and under.
However, Wal-Mart's policies go far beyond saying no to a 16-year old
at the cash register, say game developers and industry analysts. The
company's purchasing managers also review games before they're
published to ensure every aspect of the product -- from packaging to
content -- toes the line with the retailer's conservative policies.
"We're not going to carry any software with any vulgarity or nudity --
we're just not going to do it," Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams told
Reuters in October, a month before the game's release to the public.
That said, Wal-Mart has been known to carry some M-rated titles, as
long as they are big sellers. An example is Grand Theft Auto III, which
has prostitutes as characters. It sold more than 7 million copies.
Not only does Grand Theft Auto 3 have bloody graphic
violence & prostitutes as characters... One of the movie scenes
early on in the game depicts the mob boss's mechanic son, Joey, in his
garage with "his regular girl". She is poised on top of a tall
mechanic's tool chest, her breasts hanging nearly completely out of her
very low-cut top, and she's shifting around, grinding her
bottom into the chest she's sitting on, all the while making little
grunting moans, saying things like, "When are ya gonna nail me, Joey?"
And I can't be sure, but I swear I've seen a nipple in this game,
albeit a blurry one.
Wal-Mart seems bent on weilding control over & censoring the games of small video game companies who have little choice in the matter, if they want their game to sell. Yet they had no problem selling 7 million copies of Grand Theft Auto 3, in all it's violent & sexy glory, at nearly $50 dollars a pop.
posted by Chloe | Tuesday 03 December 2002 10:38 PM
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