“The Worker’s Revolution- With Animals!” So I just saw this “Animal Farm” movie and I have a good deal of things to say about it. I really liked it up until a certain point, it was a great representation of what an ideal place to live and work would be while it lasted! So basically, there is an oppressive farmer that is not providing for his animals. He wallows at the bar and gets drunk instead of fixing the problems at the farm. The animals decide to revolt and ultimately overthrow Jones, the farmer. Snowball, a pig, is put in charge by the pig who originally came up with the idea and means of the revolution. Snowball rallies the animals to share the work of the farm equally in order to create a surplus of necessities and create the best life possible for the animals. He creates a set of just rules for all the animals to follow. However, Napoleon, another pig, does not like having snowball as their leader and takes it upon himself to oust him. Napoleon takes power after having killed snowball with his personal guard of purpose bred dogs. Napoleon steals Snowballs ideas for power generation and makes the animals get to work on a windmill immediately. The pigs supervise the animals work, not really doing any work themselves while forcing the animals to work long hours for little food. The windmill is completed, however the pig rulers seemed to forget to work on food production at the same time. This causes a massive shortage for the winter and the pigs keep most of the little food for themselves. Over time, the pigs create a larger, more heavily enforced society that is the envy of the previous regime- farmers. The exiled farmers return to animal farm and wreak havok, killing and injuring many animals and blowing up the prized windmill. Napoleon orders another built, which inadvertently injures the best worker, Boxer. With the best worker injured and the windmill still being built, Napoleon sells Boxer to a glue factory, which in turn provides food for animal farm that is mostly taken by the pigs. Eventually, Benjamin, Boxer’s best friend, gets tired of the evils committed by the pigs and spreads word to all the other pig lead farms to rebel. The subjugated animals storm the meeting place of the pig leaders, and most likely kill them, creating a new, free government. Well, to start this thing off I really enjoyed the beginning of the movie. Old Major, the elder pig that first taught the animals how to rebel and what kind of government to set up really struck home with me. His ideas of a glorious worker’s revolution were some of the most beautiful thoughts I have ever heard, apart from my own of course. The ideas of class equalization, sharing of work among all (including the rulers) towards the benefit of all people, and the destruction of all who would exploit the worker, it sounds like heaven does it not? The way Snowball lead reminded me of myself, well uh… If I was to ever lead something. He never took advantage of his power and stayed true to the purest socialist beliefs. Snowball worked out on the fields along with the rest of his elite just like every other worker, just as each citizen should. Glorious! However, I did not really enjoy the second half of the film. This Napoleon guy really starts messing up the manifesto! After he offs Snowball for no good reason besides personal gain, which I despise by the way, he goes on to corrupt what was a perfectly good communist system by becoming a de facto dictator. What he does really makes me mad, all those workers that were just freed still have to work equally hard, but they receive none of the fruits of their shared labors! This is truly a travesty, and even worse all of Napoleon’s elite, the other pigs, are given whatever they want despite not sharing the work with the other animals. Another thing I didnt like was how Napoleon used his personal attack dogs to do his bidding. He killed anyone who thought differently in a desperate attempt to deter a worker’s revolution! How pitiful! He got his in the end though, because the people always win. The kinds of things people can learn from this movie are without bounds. For one, all actions by the government should be done for the benefit of the people. If the people are not happy, then the government will not exist in its current form for too long, just ask Napoleon! Another thing would be to always keep your peoples undying loyalty, maybe Snowball would be alive if his people were unquestioning of his actions. Overall, I did enjoy this movie more than I disliked it, therefore, I would recommend it to my friends. People that would really get a kick out of this movie would probably be my socialist buddies, and even my more communist friends would enjoy the scenes of glorious shared labor and wealth! I don’t think too many hardcore capitalist pigs would like it all that much as the film shows the many benefits of a socialist system (for the first half anyway). Autocrats may not dig it either as Napoleon the dictator is not looked upon in a very positive light by the film’s protagonists. To sum it all up, B+! Karl Marx was a German political philosopher and economist. Marx was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the socialist systems that were prevalent throughout the mid to late 1900s and to this day. His studies and writings on the relationship between labor and capital have inspired labour unions and workers parties that stand to this day. Some of the most well known figures in the advancement of socialism have been inspired by Marx’s ideas, such as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Marx believed in a classless society where workers are united together for the equal benefit of all people.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 02:44:00 +0000
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