'The Muppets' Has Hidden Communist, Liberal Agenda? Say It Ain't So
When Kermit laments, “It’s not easy being green,” perhaps he’s referring to his eco-friendly agenda. That is, according to Fox Business Network host Eric Bolling.
Eric Bolling on Fox’s “Follow the Money,” recently insisted that the new film “The Muppets” was promoting communist ideas and a liberal agenda, pointing to the movie’s villain, Tex Richman, an oil baron who attempts to take over the Muppets’ studio.
Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center joined in the criticism, saying, “It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message.”
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"They've been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry," Gainor said. "They hate corporate America.”
He continued: “This is what they're teaching our kids. You wonder why we've got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they've been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff," he asserted. "Whether it was 'Captain Planet' or Nickelodeon's 'Big Green Help,' or 'The Day After Tomorrow,' the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they're teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they're telling kids is what they told you in the movie 'The Matrix:’ that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth."
Despite such scathing remarks by Bolling and Gainor, “The Muppets” movie does not focus on the oil industry, and is earning more praise than criticism among Christian film critics.
Bob Smithouser, senior editor of Plugged In – a Focus on the Family website reviewing movies, music and video games – said he saw no “liberal agenda” in the film.
“In a sense, they (Gainor and Bolling) are right – there is a trend in media that plugs the liberal agenda. There are enough instances of vilifying or promoting certain views,” Smithouser told The Christian Post.
“But there’s a difference between recognizing a trend – which I don’t see in the Muppets – and helping them through the message there and this movie in particular, which I don’t think it’s there.”
In its review, Plugged In raves about “The Muppets.”
“Like us, Muppets are small and weak and … colorful. They're also sometimes just a tad off-color. Yet they dream and hope and believe like mad. And in so doing, they give us permission to do the same,” reads the review.
And what does Kermit thinks?
“In all of our movies we have bad guys. And in this movie, Chris Cooper – who's one of the nicest guys in the world – plays a really mean bad guy,” Kermit said in an interview with Smithouser (http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/pluggedin). “And with all the Muppets, we've always tried in our movies, y'know, even in the first one with Doc Hopper who wanted to chop me up and make me into a meal, we've always tried to embrace our enemies. And I think that's an important message, not only from The Muppets, but for everyone in the world.”
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