A Bug's Life is one of the best films from Pixar which as I've said multiple times on this blog is the greatest movie studio in the history of history. This post really isn't about this movie so much as how the perspective of a film can change based on how your vision of the world has changed.
When the movie came out in 1998, the world was basically sunshine and happiness. America was at the height of it's economic and political power. The Soviet Union had collapsed and China was becoming much friendlier to the West. The Cold War was over and with it the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. We were about as close to world peace as we have ever been. Computers and cell phones were just starting to become affordable and useful to the common man. I was 12 and A Bug's Life was a generic tale about teamwork and believing in yourself.
Then, 2001 kicked off what I call the Decade of Crap in which every year it has gotten a little worse to be an American. (Personally, I've been on a pretty much non-stop winning streak since 2004, but for most people it has been total crap.) In the past 10 years, we've seen war and the rise of international terrorism. China now owns a third of the US. The stock market seems to crash on a bi-weekly basis. Mexico has been taken over by the cartels. Lady Gaga is the most popular recoding artist in the world. A catastrophic natural disaster seems to strike every month. Bipartisan cooperation has never been worse. It's never been easier to get the news, but never been harder to find actual reporting. Europe is on the brink of revolution. Religion is considered more important than science. I could go on, but this is really getting depressing.
Now in 2011, as a politically knowledgeable 25 year old after the Decade of Crap, A Bug's Life is Marxist parable about the common man standing up to and overthrowing the corporate oligarchy.
Take a look at this scene...
Couldn't you see that being played at an Occupy (Your Town Here) rally? He even mentions the grasshopper:ant ratio a 100:1. [Puts on stoner voice] You see the grasshoppers represent the top 1% out there living the high life off of the hard work of the other 99% of society. They're parasites. They don't contribute. They don't need the grain, man. All they care about is greed and control. If we ants band together, we can feed them all to the birds, like they deserve, man. (Stoner #2: Who are the birds? Stoner #1: I don't know, man. The SEC, maybe? The metaphor just got away from me a little bit there, but stick with me.) The grasshoppers need the ants. The ants don't need the grasshoppers. [End stoner voice] Wow, that was a surprisingly eloquent stoner with some well though out opinions about corporate malfeasance.
The point is media is always being re-evaluated in the light of current events. Zippidy-do-da was once the unofficial theme song of Disney. Then, everyone suddenly realized that that movie is incredibly racist and now Disney has a hit out on anyone whose ever heard of Song of the South. The Terminator used to be a fun little action film, but it looks more prophetic every year. Manhattan used to be a lot funnier before Woody Allen married his ex-wife's adopted daughter making the borderline illegal relationship in the film look too real for comfort. New meanings are found, old meanings are lost. Such is the way of things. Commentary is ephemeral and can only be viewed in the perspective of the moment. In other words, if you disagree with a No Spoiler Tags post, it was brilliant yesterday.
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