While the NEA’s activist plans failed to take root in a Wisconsin second grade class, one of the most effective formulas for propagandizing children outside of school is through the movies.
Who can forget the dancing “Happy Feet” penguins constantly parading the global warming mantra to a captive audience? And wasn’t that bad guy in “Cars2” supposed to represent the evil oil industry?
Just when you thought you could relax and enjoy a kid movie again at Christmas time, along came “The Muppets,” which billed itself as wholesome family entertainment in the spirit of Jim Hensen even though one of the main characters, an evil oilman named Tex Richman, is conspiring to tear down the famous Muppet Theater and drill for oil. “He also plans to buy out the Muppets’ name and repackage them for a group of low-life Reno troublemakers because he believes that we live in a ‘hard cynical world’ and it deserves a ‘hard, cynical act.’”
When Eric Bolling at Fox Business News discussed this issue recently with Dan Gainor from the Heritage Foundation, he suggested that these and other depictions of capitalism are building resentment for wealth in the minds of young audiences. Meanwhile, Gainor stated that in a Muppet movie, “The only green thing that should be up there on that screen is Kermit the Frog.”
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Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
