1. The Marxist Fantasy Of A Bug's Life
Pixar's second feature-length film has many hidden depths. It's pretty much accepted now that it's one of many unofficial remakes of Samurai Seven, right? The archetypes and plot beats may actually have filtered through into this children's animation about an ant colony, threatened by greedy grasshoppers, recruiting a rag-tag group to come protect them, from the first big unofficial remake of Kurosawa's classic: The Magnificent Seven. There's more to it than that though, even. Sure, it's got all the usual jokes, happy ending and colourful designs as your average Disney film, but A Bug's Life
is ripe for a Marxist analysis. What does that mean? Well, Karl Marx was a pretty big deal communist, which means most of his writings are applied to a political, real-world sphere. A lot of his philosophy and world view can be used to view films, though. So, in Marxist theory, there's the idea of the bourgeoisie - the ruling class - who maintain the capitalist churn of industry by keeping the proletariat - the working class - afraid, or else victimised and exploited unconsciously, through some sort of means. Y'know, which is the exact same set up in A Bug's Life, where Kevin Spacey's grasshoppers come and steal all the food that the ants find and hoard. A Bug's Life might be the most neat, clear-cut and entertaining explanation of Marx's concepts than the man himself ever managed. It definitely has more contributions by Denis Leary.
Which other movies have incredibly deep readings to the them? Share any not mentioned here in the comments below.