Then they came for the legos (via):
First it was The Muppets. Then it was The Lorax. Now, the Fox Business Network has found another children’s movie that is clearly promoting an “anti-business” agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, beware The Lego Movie.
The first thing you need to know, according to Fox Business host Charles Payne, is that the film features a character who is actually named President Business. He’s voiced by Will Ferrell and “looks a little bit like Mitt Romney.”
The resemblance is uncanny!
Baud
President Business is wearing a red tie and Mitt is wearing a blue tie. Completely different.
dr. bloor
One of these characters is made of plastic and has no soul.
The other is a Lego.
dr. bloor
If you put the inflatable automatic pilot from Airplane between the Lego and Mitt, you’d sort of have a photographic representation of the evolution of the MittBot 2012.
Baud
47% of parents think they’re entitled to avoid the pain of stepping on a piece of Lego their kid left out on the carpet.
brantl
What do you mean looks a little like Mitt Romney, other than the jaundiced yellow pallor, versus the pasty white deadness of the robotic original, it looks JUST LIKE Mitt Romney.
Baud
Five to one, President Business finishes in the top three in the 2016 GOP primary.
Zam
All rich white men look alike.
IowaOldLady
I say it again: How can The Onion hope to stay in business?
raven
Substitute your lies for fact
I can see right through your plastic mac
Robert
Sorry, Fox screwed up big this time. The Lego Movie could EASILY have been argued as the most conservative animated feature ever. A group of everyday citizens fight against the forced conformity of one massive company who forces them to believe “everything is awesome” when it’s not. These people team up to create new structures, new tools, and new ideas to revolutionize the world through the magic of entrepreneurial spirit, invention, and capitalism. The Lego Movie goes full Galt to stop an oppressive, almost government-like, regime from controlling all aspects of life and industry. Ayn Rand would write essays about this new proof of how right she was about Objectivism (if she wasn’t long dead after years of sucking on Mama Welfare’s teet).
You missed out, Fox.
Botsplainer
Speaking of animation, this looks like an awesome game – Goat Simulator!
http://grist.org/list/this-goat-simulator-looks-like-maybe-the-best-video-game-ever/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=update&utm_campaign=socialflow
Zam
@Robert: @Robert: They don’t want that, they want to be persecuted.
Baud
@Robert:
How about a spoiler alert next time?!
debbie
Has Jim Kramer started shrieking about this yet?
piratedan
@dr. bloor: @#2 I would be happy to deliver your internets as soon as I bootstrap myself into job creating a new delivery service that eschews the US Postal Service, but the Bank indicated that they’ll have to get back to me on that.
OzarkHillbilly
Lego Mitt doesn’t pay any taxes. Real Mitt to meet his accountant.
sensesfail
Presumably, this movie is a product of free-market enterprise. Is Fox Business indirectly stating that the “free market” is not always right?
Ash Can
The Fox Business Network will never run out of targets for its tantrums as long as it continues to ignore the obvious fact that the characters it defends while blubbering about unfair persecution are BAD GUYS. Don’t want to be portrayed as a villain? Don’t fucking be one.
Oh, and PS: The Lego Movie is da bomb.
Soonergrunt
As I said on twitter, it’s more a function of the fact that Mitt Romney is Generic Rich Evil Corporate Guy. It’s why everybody was skeeved out by him in the first place.
@dr. bloor: You win.
aimai
@dr. bloor: Golf claps.
Southern Beale
LOL:
In my dreams he loses his election to a gay black man or woman.
Central Planning
So the movie business is against business?
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.”
Botsplainer
Nothing I hate more than MIT work habit gurus.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/americas-work-obamacare
The highlighted statement is full of shit, whether it came from Kochan or was inartfully strung in by the writer from some research that Kochan pointed out. Those “60 hour” weeks include a metric fuckton of pointless meetings, long lunches around meetings, grabassing, leisure web surfing/shopping, useless business travel and standing around trying to look important.
If blue collars or white collar support staff fucked around a third of the time that our vaunted high salary white collar professional job creating supermen do, they’d be gone inside a week.
PaulW
@dr. bloor:
Dammit. Beat me to it.
I’ve joked for years that they could make a statue of Mitt out of legos and it still wouldn’t be as plastic as the real thing.
RareSanity
Actually, the first thing they should have noticed, is that the Lego character voiced by Will Ferrell, looks exactly like the live action character in the movie…played by Will Ferrell.
@Robert:
You got that right…that movie was an Ayn Rand lover’s wet dream. However, these idiot glibertarians do not recognize “going Galt” unless it involves rich people benefiting and the plebes suffering. They can’t even fathom it possible any other way.
aimai
@Southern Beale: In my dreams he loses to a sane person because everyone else is just sick of his shit.
aimai
@Botsplainer: One hundred percent correct. That TPM post was a miracle of obfuscation and weird phrasing. I’d also like to point out that the importance of work to our identities has increased with the decrease of spaces for meaningful interaction in our communities outside of work. Once the Republicans touted “bowling alone” as an example of how fragile our communities are–and mega churches are built out of people’s alienation from other people, creating communities in vast, soulless, suburban hells. Of course people spend long hours at work and obsess about it when they don’t have it–people without families, hobbies, or close religious communities have no other way of meeting and socializing with other human beings except through work.
dmsilev
Having seen the movie yesterday (it’s quite good), I can say with some degree of certainty that Lord Business does spend most of the film acting like Mitt Romney would have acted in the same set of situations.
Robert
@Baud: For the plot pulled directly from the trailers? Sure. I’m sorry for spoiling the first 15 minutes of a 1 hour 40 minute film. I’m sorry for radically mischaracterizing the plot of a children’s film to mock Fox News’ arbitrary embrace or rejection of pop culture to pursue their own interests. Because, in case you were wondering, that’s not what the film’s actually about, actually focuses on, or was ever intended to be read as.
dmsilev
I do think Lord Business has a more believable hairstyle.
SRW1
@dr. bloor:
The intertubes are all yours for the day, Sir.
xjmueller
Both are blockheads.
RareSanity
@Baud:
I took my son and couple of his friends to see the movie this weekend, and I’m making a concerted effort not spoil the plot for those that haven’t seen it.
That being said, it is one of the best, most overall entertaining movies I have seen in a long time. Spoilers or not, children and adults of all ages will absolutely LOVE this movie! No amount of spoilers could ruin this movie for anyone the grew up with Legos…which means just about everybody in the U.S.
OzarkHillbilly
@aimai: In my dreams somebody fi…..
I better not say it. With my luck it will happen and I’ll get arrested for it.
MattF
There are all sorts of important differences between Mitt and a piece of plastic.
NonyNony
@RareSanity:
ARGH! NO!
Jeebus people – this is just as bad as what Fox Business was doing with the goddamn movie.
I had a bunch of stuff here that was maybe spoilers, so I took it out. But Jeebus people – latching onto some of the surface crap in the movie and claiming it’s political for one side or the other is kind of ridiculous.
Another Holocene Human
@Robert: So it’s about the storyboarders’ career move out of Disney, then?
Patricia Kayden
@Southern Beale: How is what he’s doing legal? I thought the Civil Rights Act put an end to racists “declining” to serve Blacks quite some time ago.
Ash Can
@PaulW: As the mother of a youngster whose piles of Legos — and various little scenes, gizmos, and deelie-bobs he builds with them — are constantly strewn throughout the house, I can vouch for the fact that Legos have one hell of a lot more personality than Mitt does.
Jay in Oregon
@sensesfail:
John Rogers beat these “Hollywood is pushing a liberal agenda!” idiots to death with their own shoes almost 10 years ago.
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/07/i-wish-hollywood-was-that-organized.html
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/02/just-stay-down.html
Another Holocene Human
@Southern Beale: It was funny until I ran across the racist pictures somebody uploaded. Apparently Yelp doesn’t have a “report abuse” button where you can at least attempt to get the company’s attention to nuke TOS-violating virulently racist content.
The liberals were winning the review/comment war, however.
Botsplainer
@aimai:
Several years ago, we were on one of our many steam-letting trips to Key West. We were at the sunset festival on Mallory Square (this was before the major onslaught of the floating norovirus incubators from the cruise industry there.
It was a glorious April afternoon. The street artists and vendors were there, sailboats running between the square and Sunset Key, all was right with the world. I hear a voice going loud in consternation, and it’s a white guy in slacks and a button shirt yammering into a cellphone about some deal, looking away from the water.
I had to restrain the urge to rip it from his hands in order to smash it.
Culture of Truth
Disagree. It’s not lifelike.
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
I can’t say that I miss the Legos. Cutting my feet on those little fuckers at night ain’t fun.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: Most blue collar workers I know work insane hours. Maybe they are failing to count “second job” “third job” although in my profession it’s overtime pay in the primary job, not that some of them don’t have a second job too.
And you are dead on about fuck off time. When I moved from white collar to blue collar that kind of stuff pissed me right the hell off. You barely get to go to the fucking bathroom in the job I have now and we’ve been on a decade-long speed-up. When I worked white collar I knew people who gossiped half the day and the other half sat at their desk and got nothing accomplished. I had a challenging major in college and was used to hitting the books pretty hard and was pretty weirded out.
Ash Can
@NonyNony: Also, this.
dmsilev
@Baud:
Hmmm. He believes in a strong-border immigration policy, so that’s definitely a plus. Certainly is in favor of unfettered corporate activity, so that’s good. I don’t believe his stands on social issues, especially abortion, are known. For that matter, it’s unclear what (if any) religion he follows (besides self-worship, of course). That might be a problem in the Bible Belt states.
Ash Can
@Botsplainer: One word: slippers. :)
Matt McIrvin
@RareSanity:
Most of the discussion of this is, I suspect, coming from people who haven’t actually seen the movie, and in particular the last 30 minutes of the movie, when it takes a turn that illuminates much of what has been going on.
The satire starts out in some ways similar to WALL-E, minus the environmental angle: Lord Business is a businessman who runs a company that produces every product in the world (“Octan”, which in the Lego world is usually depicted as an oil company; there may actually be some faint tweaking of Lego here, since in fact Lego’s logo is on everything and they’re all made of petroleum products). But he’s also the President of the World and has completely captured the government, so he’s kind of like the Fred Willard character at Buy ‘N Large.
But all that is laid out in the first few minutes of the film. Lord Business’s plan isn’t even motivated by greed, it’s something else. What it all actually means, which is not a political satire at all, comes later.
RareSanity
@NonyNony:
I think that the movie can be interpreted through many perspectives, just like any other artistic expression…there’s no one right answer.
I think what you expressed is an accurate description of the overall theme of the movie…the “message” so to speak. However, there are lots of ways that almost any well written movie can be analyzed to find other sub-plots or themes. Some may be intended, some unintended. Some could make sense when presented, some could seem utterly ridiculous.
That is what makes these things good. They cause people to think, discuss, and debate their own interpretations.
You bring up The Matrix…there are STILL countless debates going on about several elements of that movie, and the trilogy in general (please save the “there was no Matrix Trilogy” jokes). It is a good thing if something is written so well, that there are different interpretations with actual merit.
I say that there was a sub-plot of workers taking the methods that business commonly use to neuter them in the workplace, and instead implementing them for their own benefit. That interpretation is perfectly consistent with yours, however comes from a different perspective…there is no one right answer.
…and this is coming from an engineer, our whole world revolves around there being one right answer.
raven
@RareSanity: And a hell of an engineer!
Frankensteinbeck
Strange that the American public is starting to hate corporations and view them as evil. I wonder why that would be?
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: Don’t worry, they return with the grandchildren. They did to me just yesterday.
Another Holocene Human
@Patricia Kayden: The enforcement measure is that somebody has to sue. It’s not like you call it into EEOC and they send the Army National Guard to occupy the joint and make sure everyone gets served.
One of the reasons that the RW attacks lawyers and judges all the time.
boatboy_srq
@dr. bloor: WIN.
Matt McIrvin
@Botsplainer: Some of the white-collar workers who work insane hours really are being driven to self-destruction. Low-ranking IT workers are often driven around the clock, denied holidays and weekends, woken up at random hours during their sleep time every other night, scheduled for meetings at 3 AM when they’re on the day shift and similar fun; they’re the medical residents of the tech world.
But they’re not the people on top, and they’re not doing it voluntarily.
NonyNony
@RareSanity:
Sure. But I think that to reduce the movie down to a narrow-minded bit of propaganda for one side or another is ridiculous. For a kid’s movie, the Lego Movie had a surprisingly nuanced worldview about it, and to see it reduced down to either “it’s a movie about how corporations are evil” or “it’s a movie about libertarian utopian ideals” miss the mark widely IMO. So widely that I can only wonder if people who say them and HAVE watched the movie are the kind of people who only view the world through political spectacles. You can make an argument that those elements are part of the package, but only because it’s very broadly a kids’ movie about individuality, sharing, teamwork, creativity, following rules, and the tension that exists among all of these different things. It doesn’t try to provide any firm answers to any of these things except “don’t be afraid of change”, which I suppose in 21st century America might count as political but damn.
RareSanity
@raven:
LOL
Now that’s how I like to start off a Monday…
@Matt McIrvin:
You’re correct. The complete lack of any political message in the movie is really what puts the cherry on top of the Fox ridiculous sundae. I don’t think anyone that actually saw the movie would have thought that character represented any kind of stand-in for Mittens.
It took this post for me to even go back and try to recall if I saw anything I could interpret as even vaguely political, because there was definitely nothing overt.
Looking back, I can see things that I can interpret as some kind of social commentary, but it definitely didn’t strike me as that while I was watching the movie.
Bruce K
Fer cryin’ out loud. These are the same bunch of beeps who declared cultural war on the Muppets.
The Muppets, guys.
People of my generation and general temperament don’t have many sacred cows, but attacking the Muppets is pretty high on the “never forget, never forgive” list.
(Oh, and Fox Business News has now accomplished something that Warner Brothers’ marketing couldn’t: convincing me to go see if The Lego Movie is playing in my neighborhood.)
slippytoad
@Botsplainer:
Having been a corporate manager, yes, I’d say a good 70% of the day is a total waste of time. The 20% of us who get it all done have to spend 80% of our time keeping the 5% of prima donnas who do nothing but get in the way from wrecking our place of business.
@Frankensteinbeck:
Gosh, I guess eventually even the American people notice they’re getting horse-fucked.
RareSanity
@NonyNony:
Well I did say that I thought it was a sub-plot. I can’t speak to whether or not @Robert thought it was the theme of the entire movie. Although, I suspect he has not seen it yet.
I agree with everything you’ve said…again, it was an extremely well written movie with levels of depth you don’t normally see in a “kid’s” movie. And it managed to do with also be extremely funny and engaging…really great movie.
Ash Can
@Bruce K: Go see it. You’ll be glad you did.
rikyrah
Republicans Get Ready to Cave on the Debt Ceiling, Again
Thursday, February 06, 2014 | Posted by Spandan Chakrabarti at 1:43 PM
Part of the reason I have been relatively nonchalant on the Republican dog-and-pony show and threats to want to extract concessions from the president in order to raise the debt ceiling is that I have been convinced for some time that for Republicans, that dog simply won’t hunt. This has become a sad, broken, predictable record now: the debt ceiling gets close, Republicans swoon over themselves with promises to extract concessions from Democrats and the president just to pay America’s bills that Congress has already authorized, then let it be raised without those concessions anyway. And then in a few month’s time, they repeat and promise it’ll be different this time, and then back off again.
That is what is happening right now. Tomorrow, the Congress-enacted suspension of the borrowing limit expires, and the Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says that extraordinary measures to keep the government from running out of money will last only until the end of this month. After toying once again with demanding the suspension of the Affordable Care Act and/or approving the Keystone XL pipeline, the House Republican leadership is inching ever closer to the white flag.
Then, Boehner said the magic words: “We need Democratic support in order to pass it.” Though technically Boehner was speaking about some sort of a Republican plan that offers the GOP concessions, the very admission for the need of Democratic support may as well be equivalent to waving that white flag. This is not an issue Democrats in Congress will compromise with the Republicans on, and least of all the president. There is no chance that Boehner will get support from the Democrats in Congress or the president in the Republican attempt to take hostages over the debt ceiling, and he knows that. The open plea for Democratic help, therefore, is in truth surrender.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2014/02/republicans-get-ready-to-cave-on-debt.html
Chickamin Slam
Fox News: (The short of it) “Leave Mitt Romney alone!”
Tone In DC
@Southern Beale:
An idiot like this may end up that council? Calling that FUBAR doesn’t do the situation justice. This bastard makes David Duke look like a moderate.
kc
@dr. bloor:
Win!
Joseph Nobles
I’ve got three words for anyone upset that President Business is mocking Mitt Romney: Witch Doctor Obama.
Well, three more, but this is a thread about a family movie.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
I keep wondering what qualifies someone to be an MIT work expert. A degree in Robotics? A chair endowed by the Koch Bros.?
Ash Can
@rikyrah:
This is interesting in more ways than one. During the last government shutdown, everything could have been solved on the spot if Boehner had told the Teahadis to go to hell and had turned to the Dems for help. He didn’t, because he was too terrified of the prospect of losing the speaker’s gavel. Maybe someone far more powerful than he is has convinced him that there are worse things in life than losing the speakership, and that if he continued to fuck around he’d find out what they were.
kc
@Botsplainer:
Why do people who spend their work days fucking off on the Internet and “grab assing” need to let off steam?
Suffern ACE
@Tone In DC: well, since he’s about to become a national topic, I’m going to guess he’ll be hailed as “honestly refreshing in his candor” and his “take no prisoners, shoot from the hip” style will be hailed.
Steeplejack
@Botsplainer:
And, as Tom Levenson pointed out last night, those 60-hour weeks are also the result of job insecurity, in which the white-collar drones can’t say no to the Man for fear of losing their tenuous employment.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I wonder if Fox Business is paid to bad mouth movies because now I want to see it.
Steeplejack
@Robert:
Think you might need to recalibrate your snark meter. I.e., I believe Baud was making a joke.
Bobby Thomson
@Southern Beale:
How has this business not been shut down?
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s not, and it did.
Manyakitty
This is my friend’s husband. He’s gone viral.
Comrade Dread
@Matt McIrvin: Bingo. Those 22-32 hour ‘days’ I pulled, the 100 hour work weeks? Those were not voluntary. Those were expected if I wanted to maintain employment with the company. And no overtime pay, I was exempt.
Comrade Dread
Double post. :P
Manyakitty
In case my comment got moderated because of the stupid link I tried to incorporate, here’s a better one: http://imgur.com/8JmEJEN
Bobby Thomson
@Another Holocene Human:
No, but you can call this guy. And he knows a few federal marshals.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: It’s called “behavioral disinhibition”. Aka “louts”.
chopper
@RareSanity:
I took my 5 year old to see it the other day. It was awesome, even if it gave me ADD.
kindness
Does President Business spend half his time shitting over 47% of the American people? If so, well then the reichtwingnutz may indeed have a point.
chopper
@Matt McIrvin:
exactly. these guys are pissed over the trailer, not the film. if they watched the film all the way through they’d realize they’re being idiots.
Richard Grant
If Mitt Romney were a Lego figure, he would have built it himself.
PurpleGirl
@MattF: Name one, just one.
Ash Can
@Manyakitty: Is that ever cute!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Manyakitty: That’s very cool. I hope it gets lots of action (not intended).
I confess I was originally alarmed that your comment followed the post above it. But that’s because it’s Monday, not that I actually believed anyone here would have a friend married to a racist douchecanoe.
flukebucket
@Botsplainer:
Obviously you are not aware of the incredible stress there can be in making an AM tee time followed by a two hour martini lunch and then another PM tee time. Fucking brutal.
Ruckus
@MattF:
The plastic is recyclable.
The plastic is useable
The plastic has more morals
The plastic doesn’t lie
The plastic looks more alive
Mnemosyne
@RareSanity:
People on the left did the same thing with The Incredibles, declaring it showed an Ayn Rand paradise despite the fact that the underlying theme was “No man is an island,” a very un-Randian idea.
Ruckus
@chopper:
If they could realize that they were idiots, they wouldn’t be the idiots they are.
Manyakitty
@Ash Can: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ha! I know, right? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bella! In fact, I have some friends who made some questionable romantic choices (who hasn’t?) but overall, they’re a solid bunch. Still, it’s so funny to see a person I know show up in unexpected places.
JustRuss
In fairness to Payne, if Romney had been elected president, it would be worth whatever Saturday Night Live would have pay to re-hire Ferrell to portray him…..so, half true!
NickM
@Mnemosyne: At the risk of being tendentious, The Incredibles actually did have some pretty right-wing elements. The super-people being kept from greatness because of others’ jealousy and also because of frivolous lawsuits (and the government being the enforcer of those limits), the idea that in society, a recognition that “everyone is special” actually means the truly exceptional don’t get what they deserve — these things seemed to me to be pretty overtly political and laid on pretty thick, and I’m not usually sniffing around for that when I watch children’s movies. The tiny little Ayn Rand mentor character, though, clinched it for me — there were clear political messages there. Although I disagree with the politics, my kids like the movie and I mostly do too because it was entertaining in spite of the politics. But there’s politics there, for sure.
dww44
@Robert: Well, it isn’t just Fox,
We had CNBC on during the noon hour ( tis Hubby’s hobby in his retirement) and they had a brief segment about the movie and this one guy, who claimed not to be at all political went on and on about how the movie glamorizes the 99% and promotes labor and unions at the expense of business owners, etc. NO one, and there were 3 or 4 others around him, including the host, even voiced a counter opinion or comment. This being the business channel, guess they couldn’t afford to show any spine that might have proffered an alternative view.
T’is what you get when most forms broadcast media are for profit and the only not for profit one is constantly being undermined and defunded by Congress.
kathleen
Actually, Mitt Romney looks like a Lego figure. Moves like one too. If he actually is one it would explain a lot.
Jebediah, RBG
@Frankensteinbeck:
Must just be jealousy.
dance around in your bones
I saw the movie yesterday with the grandkids, and every time Bad Cop was on the screen he had the Cheney sneer down pat. It was uncanny.
Matt McIrvin
@NickM:
I’m pretty sure Edna Mode was supposed to think she’s Edith Head.
The quasi-Randian stuff going on in The Incredibles bothered me more on subsequent viewings years later than it did the first time, when I took it mostly as an action comedy about family dynamics revolving around a suburban dad’s midlife crisis. There are some messages in there that don’t quite mesh with the hyper-individualism, though: Bob gets in trouble with the boss because he keeps looking out for the little people instead of the shareholders, and while he initially insists on working alone, ultimately he can’t beat Syndrome without help from his family and his best friend.
Lex
I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I won’t comment directly on it. But what Fox SHOULD be talking about, if it wants to promote business and free enterprise, is the way that the Lego product and brand have evolved and been repurposed, reaching markets that were not dreamed of only 10 or 15 years ago. Seriously. If the company isn’t a mandatory case study in business schools, it soon will be.