Malls R Us

I went and saw a movie last night, Malls R Us, here in Phoenix at Modified Arts.

Official site of the movie, there is a good clip on the right hand side here

The venue's site here

DeadMalls.com

Check it out? What did you think? I was well impressed, the experience itself was pretty wild. I've never paid to watch a movie in an art gallery before and felt very cultured.

The concept of the documentary was great, it started with the concept that the mall has become a sacred space where we:
1. lose ourselves in a religious sense
2. Create our own identities through purchases
3. Find community as we speak the common language of commerce

From there it went on to talk to a peppy old man hoping to build the largest mall in the world, outside Montreal, with whatever means necessary. Turns out that being Eco-conscious is attractive to consumers, so even though he doesn't get it, by golly this is going to be an Eco-sensitive project! He had the best lines between laughing with incredulity that they actually made biodegradable shopping bags and showing deep concern with the plight of the polar bear at a Cabala's here in Phoenix. Hilarious, the line, said in front of a stuffed polar bear, was "Look at this majestic animal, there has to be a way to preserve them."

Then the focus turns to malls as community centers, a place to feel included and together. Ray Bradbury speaks some and they make some very valid points, the architect he was with was very honest in that he didn't think or care what the stores were selling, he just wanted to work with all the space between them.

That goes on to examine the expansions of ultra-luxury malls in Japan and Dubai and then the development of malls in India. There, thousands of small shop owners are facing closure as the malls campaign to have the market areas shut down under the pretense of public safety.

It would be easy to walk away with the simple conclusion that malls are bad, bad, bad.
They kill a city's downtown and hurt small store owners with the larger chain's buying power. Many of the companies in them have lobbyists and therefore make their will felt through political machinations. They take the profits of the goods generated out of the community-at some point to cheap manufacturing countries like Mexico and Vietnam where our American quality of life is supported by Cents an Hour wages. The environmental impact of the traffic and cement is huge and adds greatly to a city's heat island effect, wildlife is displaced and water flow is affected.

But...and this is the big but...people need community.

People have been trained in this country to work their brains out so they do, and because they do too often they fail to become fully actualized people. They've spent such extraordinary amounts of time and effort to earn these tickets all they want to do when they're not earning tickets is spending tickets. Its hard to think of any period of time when you're conscious but not either earning or spending money. And so malls are the new markets of old mixed in with very effective persuasive communication, centers where people can come meet and communicate themselves with the products they surround themselves in and what they're shopping for.

The problems aren't the malls themselves, they just evolved out of the desires of the populace. If the culture of a people was inundated with sports (performing, not watching), and that pursuit was seen as an end in itself, we would have huge parks and stadiums where malls now stand. Much like the ancient Greeks did.

So, until there is a paradigm shift in our culture and people want to do something more than make and spend money, there will be a great demand for commercial centers. The best we can do is to spend our money locally, on local products, and spend less money overall.

After a pretty low bar it doesn't make you happy anyway, not really.