"A Bug's Life" falls short, but demonstrates potential for proletarian art By wji in wji's Diary Thu Dec 23, 2004 at 10:59:48 PM EST Tags: User Diary (all tags)
	Disney and Pixar's "A Bug's Life" has as good side and a bad side. The good side is that it portrays the successful collective struggle of the apparently weak oppressed and exploited (in this case, an ant colony) against the apparently strong oppressors and exploiters (in this case, a band of grasshoppers). So it could be used as a parable about the struggle against u.$. imperialism. The bad side is that it never directly ties its oppressors (the grasshoppers) to the biggest oppressors in the real world, the imperialists.

Amerikan imperialism has always cloaked itself in the rhetoric of freedom and the struggle against oppression, while actually denying the broad masses any true freedom and oppressing entire peoples around the globe. So very few audiences will recognize themselves or their government in the grasshoppers of "A Bug's Life" and take home the lesson that they should be fighting against Amerikan imperialism. Although "A Bug's Life" is obviously fiction and geared for young children, it manages to portray many small and large aspects of what MIM would call class conflict. The grasshoppers demand tribute from the ants crops every year (feudalism); the ants bear this tribute because of the armed force of the grasshoppers and because of superstition; there is debate among the ants about whether to stand up against the grasshoppers at all and, once they decide to fight, how to do it; in this debate we see the importance both of leadership and of winning over the majority of the oppressed; the head grasshopper decides to make an example of the one ant with a rebellious attitude; the ants turn their seeming tactical weaknesses into strengths and defeat the grasshoppers; etc. etc. At the end of the film, we see that defeats of the grasshoppers and of superstition have allowed the ants to adopt a mechanical method of harvesting grain, leading to prosperity. Art is not the same as science or politics. MIM believes that art should popularize scientific truths (and spur scientific thinking) using artistic forms. In this sense "A Bug's Life" is a positive example for budding proletarian artists, because as outlined above it crams so much experience into a short time frame using such simple symbolism. But "A Bug's Life" is primarily a negative example to budding proletarian artists, because our art should take a definite, proletarian class stand. "A Bug's Life" fails to do this. It does not connect its abstract condemnation of feudalism and exploitation with the concrete reality that u.$. imperialism is the main supporter of feudalism and the biggest exploiter. Proletarian art can and should be subtle, but not so subtle that nobody or only those "in the know" get the point. Another problem with "A Bug's Life:" It actively works to reduce the attention span of those who watch it. This is a problem with much modern programming (and modern children's programming in particular.) We believe youth can and must concentrate and think about issues in depth.

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