Mr. Brainwash-ed himself

Hey guys, last week I went and saw the movie "Exit through the gift shop" at the Mayan theater. Wow. It wasn't really what I expected the film to be like or about, but not in a bad way. I think the main message of the film fits perfectly with what we have been talking about all quarter - activism versus mainstream. In the beginning of the movie you're like oh this is interesting, we're going to see a bunch of different street artists while we learn about this cool French guy who likes to film a lot. The interviews with Shepard Fairey, the Invader (I think that was his name), and other graffiti artists were really interesting; you got to see their motivations, how they worked, and get a taste for their own specific style. I think it's important to note that each artist had their own style and their own theme to make them unique even though they were all kind of in the same section or type of activist or alternative media. They had similar intentions of trying to question authority and hegemony, but each one displayed their message in a different manner, which I think shows their respect for the art form and also their really honest intentions with their work. Shepard Fairey especially you can tell just loves what he does and loves creating subversive messages for everyone to see and have conversations about and ask questions. I think when the framing of the film switched over to Banksy taking the camera and having Thierry become the artist that's when the intention of the film really came out and matched up really well with the theme of our class. I think Thierry giving himself the name "Mr. Brainwash" is really ironic and coincidental because he not only brainwashed the hoitey toitey uninformed art collectors and the people who came to his exhibition and fell in love with his completely unoriginal work, he alos brainwashed himself. He moved out of doing the thing that he loved so much and into a world where he could finally get noticed. Instead of fostering creativity and innovation and change, the opportunity of creating meaningful work that would actually be seen by the world (unlike his failed attempt at a documentary) went to his head and really destroyed any possibility for him to make something meaningful and actually alternative/activist. He brainwashed himself into thinking he was an almighty important artist after only a few weeks/months(?) of making this art, before he could even really get his own style. Well actually, he did have a style - a copy cat style. He did cliche Andy Warhol-esque "art" which he didn't even make himself; he hired people to do what he "wanted" so that he would have an excess of art on time for his premature exhibition. This is a perfect example of mainstream motivations corrupting activist ones. On another note, I've been hearing some rumors that some people think that Thierry is actually Banksy himself since no one actually knows what he looks like. They're saying that the movie was just an inside joke and wasn't actually based off of anything real because they can't find any information about a Mr. Brainwash. I looked him up on google and he has a website that dates back to 2007 or 2008, apparently, and the wikipedia page wasn't very helpful either, so I'm not sure what I think... What do you guys think? (About the movie, what I said, and/or the theories that Mr.Brainwash is either made up or Banksy himself).
Linna