Are Kids' Animated Movies Leaning Too Far Left?

The thing is that REALITY has a liberal bias.

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Siege mentality at work, I say. The political climate has shifted left as of late, and the political orientation that's been ousted can often get viciously defensive. Part of being defensive is that you start to get slightly paranoid, recognizing the opposing viewpoint everywhere you go.

If movies for young kids are leftist, then movies for adolescents are unabashadly right-wing... themes of "stand up for yourself," heavily gendered messages about sexuality, indoctrination into war, and tales of rugged individualism and personal ambition are rampant in movies for teens. I think it makes sense to see these themes as being connected to developmental stages, rather than politics or ideologies.

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I'm a conservative...

And if I was to skim the synopsis of Wall-E I would likely think it was a liberals wet-dream, but upon seeing It I wasn't turned off at all by some of the themes that some people consider "liberal" or "conservative bashing".

The fatties on the spaceship weren't a victim of conservatism but rather indulgence and mis-information.

And the huge myth always spouted by liberals is that conservatives couldn't give a rip about the earth or the environment. It's not true. Of course there's the exceptions but the majority of conservatives care just as much about this planet as the average lefty. Care for the environment is a common held value among everyone, whether you like it or not.

I wouldn't go so far to say the woman in Bedtime Stories was leftish, but just ditsy and irresponsible.

Sometimes people just read too far into things...

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It's just the meme that's been going around - as if the world exists in two flavors and two flavors only. Of late I read about a "hot conservative" woman's essay contest and a conservative woman's calender. I'm just waiting for the first flyers of "conservative woman wet t-shirt contest" to come out soon.

It's all very silly, there are far more than two belief systems in the world and I really hope this meme ends soon.

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Its everywhere it would seem, and as someone who has made my own films on my own, and then turned around and worked for a film studio, I know very well the hypocrisy that is this industry.

If you think the politics in Washington are bad, try working for even your most low budget studio turning out crappy horror movies. Everyone has views and everyone feels entitled.

What ever happened to art? thought I thought Wall-E was absolutely beautiful - it was very nostalgic and I felt that it had some good strong messages behind it.

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I think that the problem conservatives had with Wall-E, even though it was a fantastic movie, was that they were laying the Earth's problems on the "evil corporation". Greedy business is what ruined the world. Greed of people ruined the world.

The movie was basically saying that if it wasn't for the evil corporations, we wouldn't have this problem. Also, plants will save the world. That is a bit simplistic.

I don't know if that is what the film makers intended, but that is how it is presented in the movie.

Happy Feet, another environmental movie.

It's probably pretty hard to get a movie out of Hollywood without some liberal bias in it. After all, it seems that most artists are liberal and theater/movies being art, it just follows.

When I go to see a movie, I don't really want an agenda or politics shoved down my throat. That's one reason I never watched Stop Loss. Whoever came up with that movie had no idea what you actually sign up for when you join the military.

For Example:
If you sign up for a 4yr hitch, you are actually signing up for 8. It's explained when you sign up. 4yrs active, 4yrs inactive where they can recall you and the skills taught to you. Don't like the draft, thank this program. It helps to prevent the need of one. But at the time, that was a politically charged issue with lots of "why me" thrown in. "Don't you know these soldiers have a life and family".

However, this movie made it seem like they didn't know and how could you do this to someone.

Getting back to the topic though, if I take my kids to a movie, I would rather it didn't try to slip them an agenda. Especially if I didn't know it was coming in the first place. If it's open and upfront about it's content, then I can decide.

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I don't believe this to be the case, but I do believe that it does not paint hardcore conservatives in an appealing image by calling out childrens' movies.

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Personally, I think Wall-E is far less egregious than, say, Happy Feet. With Wall-E, you knew from the premise that there would be some kind of environmental story. But it's a cautionary tale that takes place in a future that is very far-removed from our current predicament, and I never felt preached to.

Happy Feet, I didn't so much care for. It totally springs "green-ness" on you in the third act, out of the flippin' blue. It even goes so far that the day is saved by environmentalists. The message got in the way of the story. I mean it basically came down to "don't let the evil polluters kill the cute widdle penguins". And don't even START me on Fern Gully.

And let me clarify. I'm a liberal. I'm ALL FOR saving the environment. But I hate being preached to under the guise of "entertainment".

I don't have a problem with movies exploring social themes, but there's a difference between a "what-if" and a "do-this". Furthermore, a child is never going to be able to fully internalize a social message. This is a genre dominated by butt-jokes. I don't think they catch nearly as much as we think they do.

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Left, right, makes no difference. While my wife enjoyed Wall-E, I didn't. I just didn't take to the polical agendized storyline. Of course, this isn't a condition mutually exclusive to children's animated offerings.

For instance, while I enjoyed Planet Earth, both as it aired and on Blu-ray, I definitely could do without the 'save the f-ing earth' audio agenda.

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I've seen a tendency to highlight the environment to the point of being beyond boring, but in this wasteful society, it's an important enough message. The question is whether it's been presented so often (and so often un-entertainingly) that it's become counter-productive. Newman's complaint that the human-invasion films "[paint] humans as the alien race" - well, duh, that's the point, isn't it? That's what we are everywhere but Earth. For me, the question isn't "Is there a liberal agenda?" but "Are all these movies alike?" I haven't seen these films because, frankly, they've mostly sounded kind of low-budget and uninteresting, but they really sound like they're variations of the same thing.

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I think it humorous that people think Wall-E was politically left-leaning because it took place in a world where lazy fat humans had to abondon a litter-covered earth. How is that liberal? Are conservatives pro-litter?

No. I'm a conservative, and I'm not pro-litter.

It was about global warming, or forest conservation, or drilling in the Arctic -- it was about garbage. It's no more liberal than "Idiocracy."

But I digress, because the real kicker is that Wall-E is a moral allegory about what it means to be human, not about what we should or shouldn't do with the planet. The circumstance of an uninhabitable world was only background to the real story about a robot who managed "grow a heart" and show humans how to manage for themselves again. The cause for flight from terra firma could have been anything -- bugs, fire, ice age, global warming -- it doesn't matter.

I read an interview once with Pete Docter (a conservative Christian, mind you) who marveled that people were getting so caught up on the closing credits montage and its simplistic "trees sure are prettier than garbage" theme, calling him a raging environmentalist. That's all beside the point. The real message of this movie is that hard-work is better than cruising around in a floating barcalounger, and that humanity should not become too dependent on convenience-enhancing machines. Oh, and that certain special robots can love. So yeah, people got over their dependence on machines, rolled up their sleeves, and made the world habitable again. And yes, trees certainly are prettier than giant garbage mountains. Does that make film a subversive liberal environmentalist's manifesto? Only to the tin-foil hat brigade.

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Ew, somebody got their politics in my entertainment. Be more careful next time.

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I think what every single person can learn from Wall-E is the negative effects of greed and waste can have on our lives. I think the film is merely trying to teach children, and adults to some extent the issue of climate change, the prevention of which I should hope none of you feel is an exclusively 'left-wing' agenda.

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