Exit Through the Gift Shop

Patrick and I saw an awesome movie today: Exit Through the Gift Shop. It's hard to describe, except to say it's apparently a true story -- a documentary -- and is described as "The First Street Art Disaster Movie." It's about street art and is both funny and horrible.

The guy responsible for the movie (along with other people) is the English street artist Banksy. If you don't know his work, here is one example.



He does a lot of rats, as does the French street artist Blek le Rat. I want to do a panel at Diversacon on rats in science fiction and fantasy and may want to include rats in street art. Rats are iconographically interesting, if iconographic is the word I want. Sneaky vermin, cute pets, hugely useful lab animals, carriers of disease... I like them because they are survivors and have fur. Cockroaches don't have fur.

I'm not sure cockroachs would seem better with fur. They sound kind of awful, like the hairy white crabs that have been found around deep sea hot spots.