9 responses so far ↓

• 1 elyzabethe // Jul 9, 2007 at 4:23 pm

  at least he/she called you “the epitome of a sane libertarian” before mocking you?

• 2 Christmas // Jul 10, 2007 at 11:55 am

  Seriously though, I don’t think there’s an especially strong case for a hidden Randian message in Brad Bird’s stuff. The overlap between certain Randian tenets and broadly-held American beliefs regarding the merits of individual achievement, entrepreneurism, etc., is strong enough that you’re going to end up with a lot of popular entertainment that roughly resembles bits of Rand in spots, but doesn’t come close to an actual articulation of an Objectivist ethos (if Pixar makes a movie where a cartoon panda praises the merits of selfishness while rejecting the horrors of altruism, I’ll reconsider). That a movie can appeal to an American audience by mocking bureaucrats or lauding the worth of the individual shouldn’t be terribly surprising; these values aren’t limited to Objectivism any more than altruism is limited to liberalism. All of these are broadly popular with Americans in general, and so we inevitably end up with lots of stuff in popular culture that appeals to liberals, libertarians, and conservatives – because, of course, it was designed to appeal to all of them.

• 3 LP // Jul 10, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  In the same vein, Dave Barry (before he came out as a libertarian) was accused of having libertarian tendencies based on his habit of making fun of the government. But a desire to make fun of the government, while necessary for healthy libertarian sentiment, is probably not sufficient all by itself.

  I googled ‘libertarian moonbat’ and came up with a whole bunch of hits — how is it possible that I’ve missed out on the joy of uttering this phrase until now?

• 4 Julian Sanchez // Jul 10, 2007 at 2:10 pm

  If it were any one thing, I wouldn’t tend to read it as suggesting a specifically Rand-flavored (as opposed to merely “individualistic”) influence. It’s the theme of the individual pursuing his personal dream in defiance of claims of obligation to family and tribe, PLUS the repeated and borderline didactic contrast between parasitism and creation, PLUS the emphasis on special individuals with a capacity for innovation, PLUS the exhortation to have higher standards and expectations (don’t just eat garbage!), PLUS the exaltation of creativity as a kind of essence of humanity, PLUS the denigration of the critic as a sort of parasite who exercises power by molding popular opinion… it’s the combination of all these elements that makes me think Bird’s acknowledged youthful flirtation with Rand’s work might at least subliminally be influencing his stories. Obviously the “animated version of the Fountainhead” is a bit hyperbolic–it clearly isn’t in (say) the way “West Side Story” is a musical version of “Romeo and Juliet.” But it’s also more than the loose individualism that’s just at loose in American culture. (We could run through a similar list for The Incredibles.)

• 5 Christmas // Jul 10, 2007 at 10:19 pm

  It’s the theme of the individual pursuing his personal dream in defiance of claims of obligation to family and tribe, PLUS the repeated and borderline didactic contrast between parasitism and creation, PLUS the emphasis on special individuals with a capacity for innovation, PLUS the exhortation to have higher standards and expectations (don’t just eat garbage!), PLUS the exaltation of creativity as a kind of essence of humanity, PLUS the denigration of the critic as a sort of parasite who exercises power by molding popular opinion

  That’s a very long list of PLUSes, but all it really amounts to is “individualism: good, creativity: doubleplus good, parasites: bad.” Is there a strong parasite demographic in America that Bird risks alienating here by voicing his supposedly crypto-Randian views? Is he defiantly turning off the millions of moviegoers who hold a deep and abiding love for snootier-than-thou critics of high culture? I’d be more impressed with your argument if you could point out an example of one of Rand’s unpopular views being espoused in this movie. But I don’t think a firm stance against garbage-eating is strictly limited to libertarians. As LP said above, most of these sentiments are necessary for libertarianism, but far from sufficient. They could just as easily belong to a bog-standard American conservative or liberal.

• 6 Julian Sanchez // Jul 11, 2007 at 12:58 am

  Well look, for any popular ideology, you can probably pick a subset of the ideals and present them in a way that are in themselves pretty universally held and nevertheless clearly identifiable as reflecting a particular outlook. If I make a film about a rapacious and criminal multinational corporation using coercion and extortion to shut down some mom and pop store so it can build a toxic waste dump, you can correctly point out that conservatives, too, oppose extortion and coercion. This is not a terribly compelling refutation of the claim that the film reflects a leftish sensibility. By the same token, maybe few people actively disagree with the notion that parasitism is bad, but neither is the denunciation of parasitism–especially on the part of what are essentially a class of poor scavengers–a theme you’ll find in film quite as often as a generic praise of individuality. Anyway, it’s probably silly to argue about it: I think if you just go see the film, you’ll have the same sense that it’s quite a bit more, in the aggregate, than the generic “individualism, good!” you get in lots of movies.

• 7 Christmas // Jul 11, 2007 at 12:50 pm

  Well, I have seen the movie, which is why I’m arguing about it. And what I saw looked, to my non-libertarian eyes, like an appeal to popular myths of the American dream (the struggling entrepreneur who leaves it all behind to make good on his own inborn talent, the simultaneously populist yet elitist notion that “everyone can make it” yet only a select few with inherent ability can really make it – along with the flattering implication that we, who happen to be the recipients of this myth, also happen to have this inherent ability, etc.). Again, the fact that objectivism overlaps with some of these (widely held and popular) beliefs doesn’t make Remy a Howard Roark figure.

  As to your hypothetical, if you made a movie about an evil polluting corporation that shut down local stores, I wouldn’t think you were making a movie with a leftist sentiment, I’d think you were making a movie with a populist sentiment. Evil corporations have been popular villains in American culture for decades. Similarly, depicting an uptight government bureaucrat in a movie doesn’t make that movie conservative or libertarian, any more than the depiction of an effete, cowardly Frenchman makes a movie a piece of pro-war agitprop. These have been popular targets in American culture for a very long time, and taking shots at them doesn’t make a movie really ideological.

  For a movie to actually lay claim to a particular political philosophy, I think it has to articulate a viewpoint that’s distinct enough for a rival viewpoint not to be able to claim as well. “Erin Brockovich” isn’t a liberal movie, despite the fact that it features an evil polluting corporation, because plenty of non-liberals are opposed to corrupt corporations polluting. A movie that advocated for more income redistribution, even at the expense of higher taxes for the moderately well-off and the middle class, would be an example of a liberal movie. For the most part I don’t think ideological blockbusters come out of Hollywood, which is perfectly fine – if you’re making a movie for a wide audience, you’re going to want it to appeal to as many people as possible. And Ratatouille is perfectly enjoyable as a non-libertarian, non-liberal, squishily quasi-populist piece of Americana. We’re probably not going to be able to agree on this, because I’m not going to be able to see the movie from the perspective you did, but still.

• 8 Julian Sanchez // Jul 11, 2007 at 2:52 pm

  Maybe “populist” is the better tag in some instances, but I think your standards for imputing a philosophy to a movie are too strict. Look, say someone doesn’t make a movie which doesn’t EXPLICITLY say anything about “the Jews” as such, but features a bunch of hook-nosed misers named Ira who use their control of the local media to enrich themselves by spreading disinformation to manipulate the public. The movie is not saved from charges of anti-Semitism by the fact that Jews, too, would disapprove of such behavior, because people tend to generalize. The filmmaker doesn’t actually need to say: “And this is what all Jews are like!” And while it’s possible my perception here is being colored by my ideology, (1) I’ve read Ayn Rand, but I’m not especially a fan, so it’s not like I really *want* it to be the case that there’s such an influence, and (2) Lots of people who are plainly not libertarians seem to have had the same reactions to Bird’s stuff. Anyway, I could be overreading, but I don’t think it’s crazy either. Watch it with a Rand fan sometime if you know any (and care), maybe they can bring out more persuasive parallels.

• 9 Barry // Jul 17, 2007 at 8:01 am

  Julian: “…PLUS the emphasis on special individuals with a capacity for innovation…”.

  ‘Anybody can cook’.