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Pixar Gets Political with Anti-Bush Crack
By Kyle | June 22, 2008
Why must even a Disney/Pixar movie think it’s being interesting, or entertaining, or original, when it make the same kind of anti-Bush jibes that make late-night comedy so predictably dreary? Apparently, in “Wall-E,” Fred Willard as the president is shown up to be a buffoon for saying, “Stay the course.” This kind of crack, lame as it is, also breaks the spell of the movie by hurling you out of the theater and back into reality. Moreover, animated films take so long to put together that the jibe may have been written two or three or four years ago. It doesn’t look like quite such a laugh line these days, when staying the course against hurricane-level opposition actually seems to have changed the game in Iraq. Dirty Harry has the story at DirtyHarrysPlace.com.
Topics: Iraq, Movies, Politics |
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Thanks for calling out the now very cliche anti-Bush jibes. Its grown very old, very fast. I’m no Bush fan, nor no Clinton fan (Bill), but the amount of criticism levied towards both men is excessive, distasteful, and, in many cases, premature. Doesn’t Hollywood and our media have more provocative points to make? They do; they simply choose not to make them. Cheap entertainment equals good business, I suppose. I would have thought, however, that cartoons for 6 year olds would have stayed above the silly fray the ‘grown-up’ world manages to remain mired in. Apparently not. Now we’re even polluting children’s previously unadulterated fun with polarized punchlines that fall far short of good humor. How disappointing. How immature.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
It’s the now-reflexive propaganda that Hollywood is compelled to include in every film, even if the subject is non-political. It’s a form of creative Tourette’s. The reason why most of America isn’t going to the movies anymore. They stay home and watch distinctively non-political fare like American Idol. Which is just Major Bowe’s Amateur Hour from 1940’s radio. They sell this stuff to their friends in the biz, and the anti-American left everywhere else. They don’t even bother to recover the bucks from between the coasts. Don’t need ‘em!
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
@Kyle
WallE is the finest picture I have seen all year. It transcends the medium of animation. It is at one and the same time a powerful and chamrming love story, a Swiftian cautionary tale and a persuasive argument that the world we live in should be safeguarded for those who live after us. It is a work of art. It has as much to do with George Bush and all he has sailed in and capsized as a Renoir has to a Big Mac and fries.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
It has as much to do with George Bush and all he has sailed in and capsized as a Renoir has to a Big Mac and fries.
Hunter: That’s precisely Kyle’s point. Since the movie has nothing to do with Bush, it’s not the place for a dig against him.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hey, Kishke, I have no beef against George Bush. You elected him, not me.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Hunter: Dude. You missed your calling. You should be writing advertising copy for Pixar.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
“Stay the course” was a quote originally attributed to Ronald Reagan, which makes the line in the movie all the more dated, even if it was originally in development TEN years ago…
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Maybe they’re just playing to the marketplace. Bush’s disapproval ratings are the highest in modern polling history, which means there’s a very good chance a lot of people in the theater find anti-W jibes funny. Hey, would this be the first time a Hollywood picture went for a cheap laugh to please the crowd?
Those jibes may be dreary and lame to the smart Ivy League set and the sophisticated cineastes who comment on this blog, but that doesn’t mean the average moviegoer doesn’t think they’re a riot.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Hey Hunter, I have no beef against him either.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Hmmmm.
“Those jibes may be dreary and lame to the smart Ivy League set and the sophisticated cineastes who comment on this blog, but that doesn’t mean the average moviegoer doesn’t think they’re a riot.”
Yeah that definitely counts as a draw in my heart. Pay $25 for a couple tickets and another $20+ for frigging popcorn and soda all to hear some juvenile jab at a guy who’ll be out of office in 9 months?
Now THAT is enter-frigging-tainment!
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Escapist fare is mean to cast a spell and take you away from your troubles. So anything that breaks that spell is a mistake. And obvious jokes are simply evidence of weak writing or a lack of confidence. It’s like the “Clinton is randy” jokes we got ad nauseum in the late 1900s. The first few may have been funny, but not the last 682.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:16 am
The left can’t help but to attack Bush, and I’m not the biggest fan of all of his policies (open borders anyone?) nor do I like his spinelessness when it comes to defending his policies that work (like staying the course in the war). He is not an effective communicator and the media has played him like a fiddle.
THAT being said, the left in this country thinks it is still running against Bush in ‘08. That’s why they are comparing McCain to Bush. Frankly, I’d rather have another 16 years of Bush, then four with Barrack “Carter” Obama.
It’s amazing, that when the democrats control the house and senate, the economy is in the crapper. Reagan was able to stand up to them and get the stuff that needed to get done, done. Bush Sr., was not able to stand up to them, and went along with their tax increases. That’s why Conservatives voted for Perot in ‘92. When the economy still wasn’t improving two years later the dems in the house and senate got the boot.
Now we are at a similiar point… BEFORE the dems were elected:
1) Gas prices were at least 2.00 lower per gallon.
2) The value of the dollar was higher.
They have the power to fix these things:
1) Don’t bail out banks that made bad decisions.
2) Drill everywhere.
It’s really that simple… The moment the house and senate voted to open any restricted access area for exploration AND drilling, the speculative prices on oil would drop at least 40 dollar per barrel.
You dems in here don’t kid yourselves… the election this fall will be won by whoever has the best oil energy policy… and not by the pansy;
“We can’t drill our way out of this, we need to stop using oil!”
Okay genius, what energy source is as abundant in energy content that the libs will let us use? Nukes are out. Hydro power is out… You think Solar or Wind can replace oil?
We can only get out of this current situation with more supply, and future technologies coming on line through CHEAP energy.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Hey, Mo, if it’s okay for you to call Mr. Obama as “pansy” is it also okay for me to call you a clueless, homophobic, knuckle-dragging cretin? Oh it is? Cool!
June 24th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Hunter, you clearly have difficulties comprehending what you read. Mo was not calling Obama pansy; he characterized as such the assertion that the way out of our energy difficulties was not to drill but to use less oil.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Kishke, you clearly have difficulties comprehending plainly stated homophobia.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Let the record show that a guy named “Mo” has called someone a “pansy.”
June 25th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
And let it show as well that this made Hunter sad. And angry! Poor Hunter.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:55 am
“Thanks for calling out the now very cliche anti-Bush jibes. Its grown very old, very fast. I’m no Bush fan, nor no Clinton fan (Bill), but the amount of criticism levied towards both men is excessive, distasteful, and, in many cases, premature.”
…sorry, but has any president of the U.S. ever done that much harm to his country, to other countries, to relations between people, races and religions? Has anybody else EVER ignored so much evidence on climatic change, international over corporational or human interests? Isn’t it a hopeful message to laugh him of as long as we still can?!
June 28th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
This is absurdly off-topic, yet I can’t help but correct a huge mistake a previous poster made: anyone who thinks that the solution to our current energy crisis is to drill for more oil is, quite honestly, smoking crack. It’s silly thinking, as if it’s as easy as going down to the store for more milk.
Anyone who knows anything about the oil business knows the time it would take to find new oil reserves, extract them, and setup supply chains to refineries is so great that it would have no immediate effect on current gas prices.
We have a chance right now to change the direction of the country, to start a “mission to the moon” drive to change our energy policy– to reduce pollution, to reduce dependence on foreign countries, to save money, to stimulate business. We should be embracing solar, wind, and wave technology to take the strain off city grids, pushing hybrid and plug-in cars to the max, and talk about building new nuclear plants. I personally think some drilling should occur, but to think it’s anything but a long term band-aid is silly, and to look at it as the only solution is the same wrong-headed “stay the course” thinking that needs to be scrubbed from our mindset.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
“stay the course” Is a nautical expression that means literally keeping on the current direction of travel or to stick with the original plan.
If you had even bothered to see the movie before attacking it you would have known that the line in the movie is said with reference to a space ship “stay the course”. George Bush or Ronald Reagan for that matter did not invent this line, it was a widely used expression long before Bush uttered it. Why the hell would you assume that this was a dig at Bush? You never even watched the movie and thus have no idea at all what context it was said in.
Grow up.
June 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
When did Bush get sole ownership of the phrase “stay the course”?
First things first, you might want to see a movie you criticize, but let’s just move on to the fact that Willard’s character is not the President of the US, but instead is CEO of Earth (Or something like that).
Next he is talking to someone who is ON A SHIP. Stay the course is a pretty basic term for ship people.
Third, I didn’t see Willard’s character as a buffoon. He was a desperate guy since the Earth was becoming uninhabitable, but the reason as to why it got that way was never explained.
Please find other things to be outraged about.