Fox Business: LEGO Movie "Anti-Capitalist"

[Therumancer]

FOX: Trying to find anything to ***** about...even a kids movie...

I particularly love whenever they bring up The Lorax. Granted, the remake sucked, but the fact that they're all "Damn that movie and its call for clean air!!!!" makes me laugh.

Actually, "The Lorax" was an absolute train wreck of mixed messages and really shows everything wrong with America on a lot of levels. For one we had "The Lorax" which has a generally environmentalist message being used in SUV commercials if I remember. One of those "wow, just wow" moments that made me realize that pretty much anyone will use anything for a mascot. The idea probably being "that's cute, and there is a movie right now, so we'll try and associate it with our product". Either that or It was a soulless way to try and sell SUVs as environment friendly when really... that's just wrong (not that I have anything against SUVs mind you).

That said both Lego and "The Lorax" do have anti capitalist, anti-corporate messages. The Lorax basically has a guy singing "how evil can I be?" because he actually achieves his dream and starts manufacturing his invention, which was his explicit intent all along, and came with some rather exaggerated consequences.

Spoilers Below (I mentioned Lorax first because it's older) since I do sort of agree with Fox:

Spoiler

What's more the actual "surprise ending" of Lego and the message about creativity doesn't really change the fact that the villain the kid creates is in the form of a CEO who is doing what he does for business reasons. Basically this is a movie with more than one message, a sort of message within a message, and it's basically portraying capitalism as a destructive crime and detrimental force within society... which it CAN be, but also has a lot of positive aspects as well. One has to ask why a little kid wouldn't have a villain like oh say "Paste Pot Pete" (to steal an old name fro Marvel) who is out to glue everything together, rather than a CEO and a message that sort of implies conformity within society is an inherently bad thing.

The point here is mostly that I think Fox is right, but at the same time it's kind of overreacting. Context and putting everything into perspective goes beyond most kids movies to begin with, and in a society where corporations have been a stock villain for both left and right wing for generations now... well, you can't be too critical at this point because really Lego is just following a trend. My basic attitude is that if corporations and CEOS want better publicity they should do something to earn it. To put things into perspective it doesn't really matter if a company like EA decides to throw a few million into a cancer ward for a tax write off, when they create joyless, money grabbing garbage, like "Dungeon Keeper Mobile" and other products, which is pretty much the experience most people have with them. What's more I was kind of surprised at the same time they got away with making "The Lego Movie" because really "evil Lord Business" is perfect for Lego given that they have been ruthlessly turning every IP they can find into simplistic lego video games with greatly decreasing quality, releasing cinematics from those video games as separate movies, and most importantly the price of Legos has been climbing steadily for years to the point where rather than a universal outlet for creativity that most children enjoy, it's turning into a sort of premium product, full of specialized sets, and an increasingly high price per block.

So in short, I have mixed opinions. Fox is right to an extent, but it's not the kind of thing that's such a big deal here that it needs to be mentioned as a problem on a national news network (and this is coming from a right winger). It's just not newsworthy at this point, especially when there are examples of worse corporation bashing than that in fiction.... and as I pointed it out, it's ironic that this is a movie being made by one of the most increasingly greedy children's toy manufacturers ever. I'd almost suspect on a really "meta" level you could come away from this as having a very pro-capitalist message, given that Lego is likely making monster profits and moving more units than in a long time, all for basically calling themselves evil corporate monsters. All we need is them to realize an "evil Lord Business" play set that sells for an outrageous amount of money and see it move tons of units to complete the most insane pro-corporate statement ever... I mean you do something like that, and how can you justify NOT shearing the sheeple?

 

[hexFrank202]

The Fox hatred is the absolute most horrific plague of group-think I know.

Fox news is a studio with cameras where people with interesting personalities sit behind a desk and tell you how they feel about things, and then they bring on a guest who disagrees with them and they argue about it.

That's. It.

And yet, this mass of people just assume it's this complex network of advanced corporate-funded conspiracy, and every single fucking thing they say that isn't a hundred percent logical, it's posted and trumpeted on websites like these, and everyone lines up to kick the dead horse.

"Hee hee, another Fox thread!" *steps up*
"YOU SUCK Fox!" *kick kick*
"Hee hee I feel so smart now."
*leaves*

You people are complaining about Fox accusing something of having a conspiracy and propaganda? Maybe ya'll ought to step back and look at what every Anti-Fox thread here is like.
(Also, the "Lego IS a big business" argument that guy made in the video doesn't prove his point at all, it makes a case for the movie's hypocrisy if anything. AND, it didn't 'fall on deaf ears'. It was responded to, just not directly.
I absolutely despite the writer's actions for saying "bahh hahh you wouldn't expect Fox News to be rational hahh" *kick kick*. I would fire anyone who jumps on mindless bandwagons like that if I ran a site like this.)

OF COURSE you're going to hear people say silly things on the Fox news network; it's a news company that lets its hosts, and its guests express themselves freely.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/12175/thumbs/s-NEIL-CAVUTO-large.jpg

I remember when Cod Ghosts came out, Neil Cavuto brought on a lady who claimed that violent games like those lead to violent behavior.

Now, what do you think Cavuto's response to her was? Did he nod in agreement? Did he passionately tell her how right she was? Did he say she wasn't going far enough? Why no, he chewed up and spit out her argument right back at her, pointing out how silly and stupid it was through basic scrutiny.

But was this snip cut out and posted on The Escapist? I doubt it. Why? Because Fox News HAS to be a "biased, conservative, Christian, anti-gay marriage, anti-Government, pro-corporate-control, anti-video games propaganda machine", don't cha know?

And aaaaany clips or segments that conflict with our totally accurate idea of Fox news needs to be, er, conveniently glossed over, so that we can continue to believe what we want to believe about Fox.

Or when Shepard Smith--one of Fox's top guys--announced Obama's sudden support for Same Sex Marriage as "the president moving into the 21st century". Um, no. We don't want to hear that. That didn't exist. For you see, if such a thing had really happened, that would mean Fox ISN'T run by a secret group of aristocrats planning out the daily brainwashing. And we all know that that's what it REALLY is. So we need to just not hear anything about any information that suggests otherwise. Those factual clips conflict with the truth that must be real because soooo many other people say so.

 

[Murais]

Hollywood is anything BUT liberal. At least in its current climate. Saying that Hollywood is in the far left is old stereotype that doesn't hold a lot of water anymore.

Just look at the production process. If your movie doesn't get funded, it doesn't get made. Your movie only gets funded if your investors (or studio) are fairly sure that the film is going to make money. And with films having budgets in the 100s of millions of dollars, the risk is too damn high to fund anything short of a sure-fire hit. So with this kind of climate in mind, what movies DO get made?

Remakes. Book/comic adaptations. Spectacle machines that are going to do well over-seas. It doesn't leave a whole lot of room for art, and any film with a controversial topic or element to it is often times seen as too risky to pump money into. Hell, a lot of films (like Transformers) are heavily jingoistic so that they can get military dollars to make them, or heavily pro-consumerism so as to get money from popular toymakers, comic studios, and other forms of media. You don't make a movie that is ACTUALLY anti-capitalism, because nobody will see that film made, but you can sure as shit sell films that hide under the guise of anti-capitalism because that's what resonates most with the majority of the movie-going public (young audiences).

Hollywood is a business, and in some ways, it is the biggest business in the country. There is no way in hell that a movie with a $300 million dollar budget is going to have a genuinely anti-capitalist message, because aside from being career suicide for its creators, it would be one of the most hypocritical films on the planet.

There is no revolution on the screen. The revolution is commodified and sold to you to keep your urge for justification satisfied.

("The revolution will not be televised.")

 

[hexFrank202]

Snip

I absolutely agree with everything you said, and you said it all very well. (Except I didn't read all the spoiler box; I want to see that movie.) I WANTED to make a post like that but felt it would take too long, and instead focused on confronting the 'Fox sucks' bandwagon directly because mindless group-think really really pisses me off.

But yeah, I think what that host should have changed was the way he frames the idea of 'Hollywood propaganda' in his mind. For in truth, it's probably no different than 'Fox propaganda'; it's just a big creative industry where people come up and express themselves, and share their thoughts and feelings with the world.

Of course there's no secret board where Hollywood execs decide how much Liberalism they want in this season's blockbusters. Just like how there's no central meeting board where Fox execs decide how much they want to brainwash America this week.

But that doesn't change the fact that movies like this do have an impact on the people who watch them. I don't really think seeing CEO's portrayed as villains will brainwash a kid into hating wealthy corporate people; I think that notion is silly. Rather, I think it's more of an issue of, well, group think.

If you grow up with every movie and TV show you watch saying "CEO's are villains, and the success they make results in less success for others", you're likely to just walk around assuming that it's true.

Most people think that, if you become richer, that must mean someone else became poorer.

Most people think that, if you raise Minimum Wages, people without enough money will be better off.

A lot of people think that the puny amount of Co2 civilization has emitted into the air is enough to permanently change the weather, despite it being less than a single volcanic eruption from the seafloor, apparently.

 

[hexFrank202]

Snip

Kind of, but not really. A studio/director/actor/producer really can be that hypocritical.

See, one thing you need to keep in mind about anti-capitalist societies, is that fat cats and corporations totally stick around and get better than ever. The more power the government gets, the more power the biggest corporations get as well.

So naturally, Hollywood in a broad sense would benefit (in terms of raw power and money in the short term) from this country turning to a Communist state. They'd almost certainly be handed even more power.

And if you don't accept this, just look at the situation now. Our government already gives its power to corporations al the time, and/or becomes one with the biggest companies. Look at GM.

 

[144_v1legacy]

It's nice that there's a company going out of its way to be "the evil team."

 

[Murais]

Snip

Kind of, but not really. A studio/director/actor/producer really can be that hypocritical.

See, one thing you need to keep in mind about anti-capitalist societies, is that fat cats and corporations totally stick around and get better than ever. The more power the government gets, the more power the biggest corporations get as well.

So naturally, Hollywood in a broad sense would benefit (in terms of raw power and money in the short term) from this country turning to a Communist state. They'd almost certainly be handed even more power.

And if you don't accept this, just look at the situation now. Our government already gives its power to corporations al the time, and/or becomes one with the biggest companies. Look at GM.

It's not a 'kind of', my good man. It's the state of affairs.

I can go into my own conspiracy theories about power structure (military/government, Hollywood, and Wall Street are all in bed with each other), but the part about films having innately conservative narratives because of their production process and market climate isn't conjecture, it's fact. I've got two degrees pertaining to this information, and I've spent the better part of six years learning film study and the state of the industry. I'm not a formal expert (by any means), but I would assert that what I say has some weight.

And how do you figure that corporations benefit heavily from Communism? They would lose the beloved laissez faire economics and deregulation that they enjoy and so worship Reagan for. Government contracts would still certainly be a thing, but there's no way in hell it would compare to free-market takeaway. While I agree that Wall Street and government are 100% in bed together, I think it's less a mutual relationship and more a dependency. Legislators need campaign money to keep their offices. Companies freely and frequently 'donate' to these campaign funds, and the politician has to spend most of his term campaigning, preparing to campaign, and making good on favors in order to keep his livelihood going. Some of them don't even take the bribes, but they don't usually stay for long, or they have to work extra gods-damned hard in order to stay where they are. The hydra is big, but it isn't that big, and there are exceptions.

 

[MCerberus]

Hammer, first of all, most of the big modern cultural heroes are rich, so there's that.

But speaking on why Fox doesn't get any slack isn't because of the obvious ideological slant. Everyone has opinions. It isn't even about the disdain they treat younger generations with. No, it's because they go so far off the scale of acceptable behavior that they're squarely in the "Bad actor" category.

First, we need to start at the top. The network as envisioned was actually disguising propaganda as news, and Murdoch and co have since stuck to their post-Nixon guns. This means condoning the actually racist southern strategy, fear mongering, and the later advent of hyper-partisanship in the vein of Gingrich. The fact that they can still call themselves a news station is simply because they pay a lot of lawyers.

What's worse though is their editorial process. The lead editor comes up with narratives and talking points regardless of facts in order to drum up outrage and anger from their viewers. This leads to them sticking to their outrageous and false stories, like the ACORN scandal, or most recently, their rather bizarre notion of what they think happened in Libya.

Those two are reasons but not THE reason Fox is so hated. No. They yell, they scream, then they blame other people for their own yelling and screaming. The MO of the channel is to poison the well then start pointing at people to blame when they can't drink. Their process is harming the ability of the republic to run.

So that's why they deserve to get called out more than others.

 

[kaizen2468]

Because CEOs are in it for MONEY. Not people. You think they're in it for make jobs to help people? No, if those people don't make them money, they'd be fired immediately.

 

[Gaianus]

Christ. Y'know, in the Victorian Era, the bad guys in the latest plays, dime novels, and the first musicals were usually aristocrats- Barons and Counts, most often. Shockingly, the very much alive and still in power aristocracy didn't freak out and realized aristocrats, because they are the ones in power, just make good villains.

 

[Callate]

Christ. Y'know, in the Victorian Era, the bad guys in the latest plays, dime novels, and the first musicals were usually aristocrats- Barons and Counts, most often. Shockingly, the very much alive and still in power aristocracy didn't freak out and realized aristocrats, because they are the ones in power, just make good villains.

And, y'know, there's the whole "making orphans climb up chimneys and work in sweatshops" thing...

Power is only half of the story. The other half is a pattern of behavior that has been described, without hyperbole, as psycopathic.

Defending such behavior doesn't tend to put one in the best company, either...

 

[Nielas]

I watched the movie yesterday and I must conclude that the Fox people did not.

The bad guy in the movie is usually referred to as "President Business" and the society he is trying to build is closer to state communism than anything truly capitalistic. The message of the movie was very much libertarian in nature.

 

[glider4]

I think the movie must have struck a nerve with them. I wonder why?

 

[Evil Smurf]

I always see a film after Fox News complains about it. This will be no
Different.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

of course, a movie made by huge corporations about a huge corporation is agaisnt huge corporations


yup, idiots are everywhere, atleast you guys have it easy, in the US the idiots are not running the show thank god

 

[Dalisclock]

Fox is just retarded and pandering to the old white audience.

Which is their ONLY audience.

 

[Dalisclock]

So, wait, you're telling me the movie based around a children's toy, exclusively designed to sell toys to children is anti-capitalist?

What next: "Fox News: Hitler was too left-wing"?

Actually, a lot of them seem to believe that "National Socialism=Socialism" and since "Socialism=Communism", then "Commnists=Nazis". I wish I was joking

 

[JSkunk22]

I knew it! There is an alternate dimension where Mitt Romney became president, and of course it's wacky.