Marxist Animation

EPISODE 065: LESSONS IN FILM GENRE   Featuring: A Bug’s Life (1998); Chicken Run (2000); Robots (2005)   At the dawn of the new millennia, animated films began its rapid transition from physical medium to computer generation and changed the film industry altogether. Steve Jobs’ Pixar signaled the move away from Disney’s 2D cell animation and Aardman’s claymation, and foreshadowed the complete tech takeover that Hollywood has been experiencing since the 2010s. With months-long labor strikes, VFX artists unionizing, and Hollywood studios monopolizing nearly every other week, the phrase “means of production” carries a double meaning when it comes to critiquing the film industry from a Marxist perspective. To gain an elementary understanding of how Marxist theory operates, WR&P cohosts Ryan and Kevin throw it back to the early aughts and the late 90s with three animated children’s flicks from three different animation studios that echo sentiments of class consciousness, consumption, and materialism.