11 Childrens Movies With Political Agendas? You Betcha, Say Conservatives

Publish date: 2024-05-22

11 Children’s Movies With Political Agendas? You Betcha, Say Conservatives

‘The Iron Giant’
1999
Young Hogarth Hughes befriends a helpful, peaceful robot from outer space that has crash-landed on earth, though a U.S. government agent rather inexplicably and obsessively is out to destroy the miraculous find – even if he has to kill scads of innocent people in the process. While the movie is mostly beloved by both sides of the political aisle, there’s no escaping the powerful anti-gun message, which bothers Second-Amendment advocates, a group made up largely of conservatives.
‘Finding Nemo’
2003
Conservatives argue that a staple of liberal films aimed at kids is a simple message: Animals good, people bad. And the humans in this film – from the scuba divers who capture a defenseless clown fish to a bratty little girl who wants it for her pet – are largely portrayed as completely disinterested in the plight of less evolved creatures. It would be a chore, though, to find a conservative who would pan Finding Nemo due to politics.
‘The Incredibles’
2004
A family of superheroes give up their heroics after the populace turns on them and lawyers sue them for the destruction they cause when they battle villains. Conservatives have embraced the film as a cautionary tale of what could happen to a society if it encourages frivolous lawsuits while discouraging strong and courageous men and women from fighting evil.
‘Ice Age: The Meltdown’
2006
Many conservatives assume that the problems faced by Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the sabre toothed tiger (Denis Leary) due to melting glaciers is meant to convince children of the impending horrors of modern-day global warming. The irony, conservative fans of the film point out, is that the movie reminds kids that climate change predates humans and the industrial revolution by a long shot, so if it wasn’t manmade pollutants that heated the planet and thawed the ice age back then, why must humans be blamed for a warming planet today?
Wall-E
2008
The consensus is that this movie about a little robot left on earth circa 2805 after it has been wrecked by trash and over-consumption is meant to appeal to liberals. Some conservatives, though, appreciate the film because it doesn’t make capitalism the soul blame for the consumerism that brought down the planet; big-government do-gooders that tried to provide everyone with everything they desired are also at fault. And some progressives were actually disappointed that humans, who eventually return to earth, aren’t sufficiently punished for their mistreatment of the planet.
Happy Feet
2006
Mumble can’t sing like other penguins can, and for some reason his tap dancing is deemed radical and off-putting. But what ought to bother the penguin community more is that fishermen are depleting the food supply. Human encroachment on the pristine wild, in fact, is the film’s dominant theme, and it’s one that resonates big time with environmentally conscious liberals. The rather obvious political messages were no accident. “In Australia, we’re very, very aware of the ozone hole,” director and co-writer George Miller told the Wall Street Journal, “and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal mine for this stuff, so (the film) sort of had to go in that direction.”
Battle for Terra
2009
Another staple of liberal films aimed at children: earthlings bad, aliens good. Think E.T.: the Extra Terrestrial, or if Avatar were a CG-animated movie for youngsters. Not many people saw Battle for Terra, but conservatives who stumbled upon it were irked by the portrayal of a Bible-quoting, American-looking military general as the bad guy. And, naturally, humans (again, probably Americans) have wrecked their own planet with pollution so now these warmongers must wipe out the peaceful inhabitants of another planet so they’ll have a cleaner place to live.
Astro Boy
2009
Why would an animated movie for kids include posters of Lenin and Trotsky on the office walls at the headquarters of the protagonists? To promote Marxism, of course. Conservatives say Astro Boy and his friends in the Robot Revolution Front are promoting a left-wing fantasy of a classless society where equality of outcome is guaranteed and American notions of freedom and personal responsibility are downplayed. Those in the ruling class are obvious stereotypes of greedy, war-mongering conservatives.
Cars 2
2011
Conservatives were disappointed — and some liberals no doubt cheered — when Pixar’s main man, John Lasseter, said before the film’s release that an entire industry, this time energy, would be the villain. “There’s ethanol, there’s all this stuff we could be doing and so I thought, well, this could really be cool if you have big oil versus alternative fuel,” Lasseter said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “The greatest bad guys you understand. You know where they’re coming from. They believe they’re doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s for greed, sometimes it’s for other reasons.”
‘Happy Feet Two’
2011
Like the original, humans are portrayed as despoilers of the planet, and a scene with polar bears clinging to a melting chunk of ice proves that manmade global warming is a massive problem, a notion most liberals believe and most conservatives reject. Some conservatives also argue that a broad theme throughout the movie is that collectivism beats capitalism and that the relationship between Will the Krill and Bill the Krill (Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) is an endorsement of same-sex marriage.
‘The Muppets’
2011
A third liberal staple: the rich are bad, the poor are good. Hollywood filmmakers may work hard to amass great wealth, but judging by the plots of children’s movies no other rich person in America deserves their wealth because they acquired it dishonestly. Conservatives, therefore, knew the moment a character named Tex Richman was introduced that he’d be the antagonist. What’s more, he’s an oilman. Conservatives criticized the cliché’ but many also cheered the film for its innocence and nostalgia and the can-do spirit displayed by the Muppets. But why was Democratic bigwig James Carville cast in the film if not to make some sort of political statement, albeit aimed at adults?