Conservative movies
Dave, normally of Garfield Ridge but moonlighting at Ace of Spades (I guess that makes him Dave of Spades), wonders what movies readers think are "conservative". I tried to contribute but my comment was denied due to "questionable content". Obviously the Man trying to keep me down.
Anyway, what was my contribution? Someone had already mentioned "The Incredibles" but I also think "A Bug's Life" is, if not conservative, at least unabashedly pro-individualism, pro-industry, and anti-socialist.
Flik, the hero, is the one ant in the colony who dares to think differently. And not in a wears-birkenstocks-and-burns-incense sort of way, either. No, Flik is an industrialist insect whose inventions hold the promise of catapulting the colony into an uprecedented age of leisure and comfort. Yet the rest of the ants, bowed by a tradition of conformity, reject Flik's technological advances.
The colony is also utterly dominated by a band of maruading grasshoppers who rely on thuggery and brute force to cow the ants into accepting their tyrannical rule. Interestingly, the grasshoppers are fully aware that their elevated status depends making the ants believe they are weaker than they actually are and naturally belong on a lower rung than the grasshoppers.
The ant colony eventually sends Flik on a fool's quest to find a way to defeat the grasshoppers. Ever the optimist, Flik mistakingly believes a traveling insect circus is actually a band of fierce warriors. Although the truth comes out and all despair at the grasshoppers' impending arrival, Flik's ingenuity saves the day and the ants awaken to the true power they possess as individual acting together to overcome tyranny.
Not bad for a cartoon about bugs.
Anyway, what was my contribution? Someone had already mentioned "The Incredibles" but I also think "A Bug's Life" is, if not conservative, at least unabashedly pro-individualism, pro-industry, and anti-socialist.
Flik, the hero, is the one ant in the colony who dares to think differently. And not in a wears-birkenstocks-and-burns-incense sort of way, either. No, Flik is an industrialist insect whose inventions hold the promise of catapulting the colony into an uprecedented age of leisure and comfort. Yet the rest of the ants, bowed by a tradition of conformity, reject Flik's technological advances.
The colony is also utterly dominated by a band of maruading grasshoppers who rely on thuggery and brute force to cow the ants into accepting their tyrannical rule. Interestingly, the grasshoppers are fully aware that their elevated status depends making the ants believe they are weaker than they actually are and naturally belong on a lower rung than the grasshoppers.
The ant colony eventually sends Flik on a fool's quest to find a way to defeat the grasshoppers. Ever the optimist, Flik mistakingly believes a traveling insect circus is actually a band of fierce warriors. Although the truth comes out and all despair at the grasshoppers' impending arrival, Flik's ingenuity saves the day and the ants awaken to the true power they possess as individual acting together to overcome tyranny.
Not bad for a cartoon about bugs.
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