We rented the animated movie The Croods tonight. Not one I had any desire to see in the theater. In no time at all I very much got the impression that there was a political message to it.
The Croods are a family of cavemen who live by the philosophy that all things new and different are going to kill you. The father pushes fear and ignorance in order to keep his family in line with his beliefs, even to the point of locking them up for days at a time 'for their own good'. They live in darkness, not even having discovered fire, most likely due to having no desire to progress beyond what they have always known.
As far as I am concerned that really sums up your conservative fundamentalists perfectly.
Once they are introduced to reality, by being forced out of their cave due to earthquakes, they are exposed to the beauty and wonder of the world. They now have to deal with the dangers that are all around them, but their lives suddenly start to have meaning.
There is a whole scene with the family being exposed to fire for the first time and due to reacting to it with fear and ignorance, they make things worse.
At one point the diehard conservative father is lost, running in circles while the rest of the family is able to find their way through discovery and growth. The father then gets upset because the rest of the family is embracing change and progressing, instead of allowing him to control them any longer with his promotion of fear.
Of course once the father starts to embrace the ideas of progress and discovery things start to get better and of course it all ends with everyone being better off thanks to him accepting the reality of change.
You really could break down so many aspects of this movie to show the dangers of conservative thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment