[The Immortal Goon]

Following the simple and easy-to-use building instructions imprinted on the back of their ideological boxes, Fox News has constructed another controversy out of a work of children’s entertainment—this time The Lego Movie. Like its past outrages over The Muppets and The Lorax, the network has lashed out at the film for attempting to indoctrinate the naïve with simpleminded messages about capitalism, only for the wrong team, blasting a movie based on a global, multibillion-dollar toy manufacturer—and the reinvigoration of its branding through movie-generated merchandising—as being “anti-business.”

Unlike The Muppets, which tried—but failed—to mask its anti-corporate message from Fox News by giving its tycoon villain the subtle name “Tex Richman,” The Lego Movie doesn’t even bother to hide its agenda, calling its main antagonist “Lord Business.” And the fact that Lord Business is meant to represent business definitely wasn’t lost on Fox Business host Charles Payne, who works every day at a network with “Business” in its name, so you’re not going to put one over on him. Indeed, Payne even noticed that Lord Business “looks a little bit like Mitt Romney,” in that both are plastic, malleable, and easily held up as props for the opinions of Fox commentators.

“Why is the head of a corporation, where they hire people, people go to work, they pay their rent, their mortgage, they put their kids through college, they feed their families, they give to charities, they give to churches—why would the CEO be an easy target?” Payne demands of his guest, Rentrak senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, whose meek defense against Payne’s “Ode On A CEO” makes him the functional-yet-weak, 1x1 angular brick of Payne’s one-sided debate. Halfheartedly suggesting The Lego Movie might at least “start a debate” about the nature of business within incredibly depressing households, Dergarabedian is immediately steamrolled by Monica Crowley, who steps in to become the first person to ever defend It’s A Wonderful Life’s Mr. Potter.

[youtube]rprB_VNm3L8[/youtube]

As Dergarabedian goes on to suggest implicitly that calling a major studio’s marketing synergy-based movie franchise “anti-business” might be overreaching, Payne replies that it at least sounds like “hypocrisy” to him. A hypocrisy that may result in the children who see it developing antagonistic attitudes toward business, even as they demand their parents buy them more Lego bricks.

Having pointed out the hypocrisy of a media company using bobbleheads to decry the very things they profit from, Payne returned to complaining about entertainment for Fox.

The best line is:

Hollywood is all about the bottom line, so they will hire a Republican star, like Sylvester Stalone or Bruce Willis, if they think they can carry a movie and make money what is the purpose of trying to indoctrinate kids in this movie, I mean, I guess they think this movie is going to make a lot of money, so no matter what they can imbed these kinds of anti-capitalist messages and get away with it.

Those evil anti-capitalists working for Warner Bros. only care about money! Bad guys in movies should only be poor and powerless.

What is wrong with people? But more to the point, does this kind of propaganda work?

[Rei Murasame]

I wonder if the commentators ever stopped to ponder the fact that 'economic power precedes political power', and that 'a person who controls resources is called a person of means, not a person of ends'.

There is a near 100% chance that a big antagonist in a movie will be in control of decent amounts of capital, because the antagonist would not have the power to do anything otherwise, and thus there would be no story to tell.

[Nautilith]

Oh, Fox News, you never fail to make me laugh.

Fox News seems to discover a lot of "commie conspiracies to indoctrinate children." I believe there was another time when they attacked a math textbook because it had an example based on "distributing the wealth", calling it a socialist subliminal message.

They don't seem to realize that these movies are being produced by corporations.

[Eauz]

Is this a parody?

I guess Fox has turned into a beacon of socialist truth.

[VerminLord]

I am a conservative, but I only agree with Fox a part of the time. Not everything is a communist plot. Unlike most of the time however, I could see why they would find this particular case hypocritical.

Hollywood is liberal and I would imagine they are anti-business if not straight out opposed to capitalism, and it is funny how they believe this and try to make money off of their movies. However, I do not think the Lego Movie is indoctrinating children. It is just a kid's movie.

I quite enjoyed the film and had some good laughs, I also liked the Lorax even though I do not agree with its environmental message. Messages are important, but I do not let it get in the way of me enjoying the film.

[Lightman]

The strange thing about this is that I know libertarians who have praised the Lego Movie explicitly as a pro-libertarian film.

[The Sabbaticus]

This has been a consistent theme since the eighties. Powerful corporate figures with Machiavellian schemes. Of course in the wake of the largest financial crisis in the last eighty years, where the world economy was actually brought down thanks to these craven and underhanded schemes, they might have had a point after all. And with the many corporate scandals, from Japan to Brazil, how can these corporate figures not star as the loathsome antagonists?

In China they were poisoning infants, ffs. A plot so ridiculous it would only feature in a Saturday morning cartoon on a rerun. Not only that, but CEO's have consistently proven themselves to be worthless. They're basically teflon politicians in the corporate sphere. They don't actually do anything other than soak up funds and maintain their nepotistic networks. Even accountability doesn't exist in their world, as the last couple of years have demonstrated definitively.

[Varax]

I don't see anything hypocritical or ironic about a company making money by using a film to promote their product and at the same time tapping into populist sentiment by making a wealthy businessman as the villain. Business interests aren't homogeneous and if this sort of villain is one that works for their purposes due to populist sentiment and CEOs being such easy targets for such purposes then that sentiment can be commodified by a company and used for their own ends. Do you honestly think that socialists have some sort of monopoly over this sentiment? Hardly. Witness for instance the Che T-shirt phenomena - or publishers profiting off of books by Marx or other leftist authors. It happens all the time and movies where you have an amoral businessman as the antagonist where you need someone in a position of power that is easy for the common person in the audience and the protagonist is often some kind of 'relatable' audience surrogate/everyman. It may seem ironic but really it is just business as usual. If it can be marketed and commodified it will be.

As for Fox News this is some epic level doublethink on their part but yes this kind of propaganda on their part is pervasive and effective at playing towards their audience who are thoroughly indoctrinated by the ethos of neoliberal capitalism.

[mikema63]

It's almost entirely necessary to advance the story that the bad guy have means. Can't go trying to take over the world without means.

[Manifest]

The Lego movie wasn't really anti-business. it was more anti-people-controlling-everything.

[One Degree]

As I mentioned in another thread, "There really are monsters out there.".

Now we know some of them work for Fox.

I did not say they were intelligent monsters.

I wish I had not read this thread though. That type of absurdity is really depressing.