The Left used Hollywood to claim Animal Farm for itself. Andy Serkis’s adaptation reframes Orwell’s anti-communist classic as an anti-capitalist animated film. The $35M movie made $3.4M on opening weekend from 2,600 screens, averaging $1,307 per screen. Ticket buyers had their pick of seats.
The audacity is breathtaking. Orwell disemboweled communism in a simply told fairy tale that is considered a literary and political classic. The idea of revising someone else’s famous critique of the Left to sell the Left’s empty bombast was silly to begin with, but doing it was super-dumb. How many thought-challenged zealots on the Left will leave the theater with the intent of reading the book? Okay, not many, because few saw the film.
Yet films often revive interest in books. Many who skipped
the film may read about its failure and think, "Hey, I remember that book
from school," and, like me, decide to read it again. I did, and found it’s
still a great story—just as relevant as 81 years ago. Human nature hasn’t
changed.
Animal Farm uses the enduring form of a fable to reveal an
eternal truth. Orwell succeeded. (The movie did not.) Having once believed in
socialism, Orwell later changed his mind. People who have lived under socialism
certainly don’t like it. Eastern Europeans aren’t buying this crap. Misery and
despotism entrap North Koreans while their brethren to the south live in the
eleventh richest nation on Earth. There are no refugee boats risking life and
limb to reach Cuba. East Berlin didn’t build a wall to keep Westerners out.
Even people in Russia and Albania prefer a kleptocracy to communism.
The truth is, socialism works exactly as portrayed in Animal Farm. The world needs this book to go viral. Buy a copy. Make George Orwell’s
Animal Farm a bestseller once again.
