Poster artist Shepard Fairey puts an obedient spin on John Carpenter's politically themed horror satire They Live in a new poster, unveiled Thursday night in conjunction with Alamo Drafthouse's screening of the 1988 sci-fi classic.
Fairey credits *They Live * as a "major source of inspiraton" for his own subversive brand of street art.
"They Live was ... the basis for my use of the word 'obey,'" Fairey said in a statement. "The movie has a very strong message about the power of commercialism and the way that people are manipulated by advertising."
Describing his 2003 exhibition, This Is Your God, Fairey noted: "One of my main concepts with the show, and the [Obey] campaign as a whole, was that obedience is the most valuable currency. People rarely consider how much power they sacrifice by blindly following a self-serving corporation's marketing agenda, and how their spending habits reflect the direction in which they choose to transfer power."
They Live addresses those same issues, Fairey said.
"The protagonist discovers hidden messages lurking behind billboards and anything commercial, and the money says 'This Is Your God' on plain white paper," he said. To promote the Alamo's Thursday screening in Austin, Texas, Fairey designed a graphic that "looked somewhat like real money but with that slogan."
In the clip below, Carpenter says he made They Live in response to President Ronald Reagan's conservative agenda and the "obsession with greed" that followed. He warns: "Right now, we are consumed by consumerism.... 'They' are still among us.'"
Limited-edition prints of Fairey's poster go on sale Friday at Mondo's website. Buyer beware.
