Fox uncovered the evidence in the latest Muppet movie, called, predictably enough, The Muppets. In the film the villian is named Tex Richman, who wants to buy and tear down The Muppet Theatre and drill for oil on that spot.
By painting the oil guy as a villian, the makers of the movie, as well as Hollywood in general, are indoctrinating our kids to hate corporations and the oil industry, so says Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center, who appeared recently on Fox's "Follow the Money" program to make his comments.
Say Gainor:
"It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message,"
He added:
"They've been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry... They hate corporate America. And so you'll see all these movies attacking it."
Well, how un-American! How dare the Muppets do anything but portray the oil industry in a positive light! As Gainor points out, we need the oil industry to help fuel ambulances, keep hospitals heated and lit and all kinds of good stuff. I guess we need more movies about ambulances with full gas tanks and hospitals that are comfortably warm and well lit.
Frankly, I've always suspected those dastardly Muppets, despite their sunny, humorous exterior. I can find the dark side of all the characters, now that I think of it.
Kermit the Frog is the obvious one. He sings about how it isn't easy being green, an obvious appeal from radical environmentalists to let them rid the world of pavement and buildings.
At first glance, Miss Piggy seems glamorous enough, for a pig anyway, but certainly she's like those protestors who dress up in gowns and tuxes to mock the very rich.
Rowlf the dog reminds me of Ed Asner, who is well known for his liberal, decidedly left of center views.
Fozzie Bear is always saying "Wocka! Wocka! Wocka!" which is clearly coded instructions to those insurgent Occupy Wall Street protestors.
And ever notice how awry Dr. Bunson Honeydew's experiments go awry, to the repeated detriment of the hapless Beaker? Obviously, he represents an attack on chemical corporations' business. And notice how Dr. Bunson Honeydew has no eyes. That's a leftist accusation that the chemical industry turns a blind eye to the health and safety of the public.
OK, maybe Gainor is being a bit melodramatic. After all, so many story lines in movies involve underdogs who defeat the powerful. It's a standard American meme. Aspirational Americans want to get ahead through grit, honesty and smarts, and they relate to the underdogs.
And corporations, whether good or evil, tend to be powerful. Since movies like the Muppets need a powerful villian, a fictional corporation is a good stand in. Surely Gainor doesn't think that a fictional oil baron in a kid's comedy movie is anticorporate, communist propoganda.
Oh wait, he does. We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess.
And, um, Mr. Gainor, The Muppet movie was presented to us by Disney. Isn't Disney a big corporation that the communist Muppets are supposed to hate?
In any event, appropos of nothing, the Muppet movie kerfuffle has me taking a trip down memory lane. My past is goofy, and a Muppet related memory is a classic example.
When my sister Lynn and I were really little, we were enamored by this little Muppet ditty, which to this day I still find catchy:
I would do the mahna, mahnz part, and Lynn was "Doo, doo, doo doo." When I'd get carried away on the Mahna, mahnas, as the character in the video does, she'd cuff me in the head, I'd calm down, and quietly, say, "mahna, mahna," she would happily offer a "doo doo doo doo," and the whole process would start over. Ah, we were such well adjusted kids!
I hope it doesn't mean we were budding communists.
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