No Is Yes

A combination of experimental and narrative approaches which explore the commodification of rebellion as it is marketed to youth culture, through the eyes of two drug-dealing, teenage girls from Brooklyn who "accidentally" kill and mutilate their favorite alternative rock star. Their obsession with murders and makeovers and their confusion between fashion and transgression lead these girls into a world where nihilism is bought and sold, and rebellion is impossible.

“Parnes’ video No Is Yes is a… narrative in which two teenage girls murder a misogynist punk rocker in a Thelma and Louise style face-off, give him a Clueless style makeover (stripping him nude, tying him up, adorning him with knife inflicted scratches), and then ask their mentor, a dominatrix named Sarah, for Pulp Fiction style help in disposing of the body. (“Who do you think I am, Harvey Keitel?” Sarah asks). Enlivened by quick editing and MTV-style inserts, No ls Yes is a teen rebellion film reinterpreted for a gallery context with a bleak message—that rebellion in a world of commodified nihilism is meaningless.”

--Tom Moody, VERY Magazine (Fall, 1999)