Well, so much for a hopeful new year. You all know what I mean: Andy Serkis’ child-friendly Animal Farm, adapted supposedly from Orwell’s seminal Stalinist satire, looks nothing like the book it is based on. Gone is the allegory towards Stalinist Russia, gone is the darkness. The tyrannical Napoleon (a stand-in for Joseph Stalin) is voiced by Seth Rogen of all people, doing his goofy uncle impression.
Another day, another beloved IP with important messages still relevant to the world watered down and distorted to make money or follow some strange, misguided passion project, as with Andy Serkis’ neutered vision for Animal Farm.
I don’t think people would have been as upset about it (myself included) if it weren’t coming out in the interesting times we are currently living in. Why do we have to get a sanitised, toothless imagining of Animal Farm now? We could have had a faithful and uncompromising depiction of populism giving way to tyranny, illustrating the dangers of relying on charismatic strongmen to take care of us in exchange for our loyalty.
Why on earth would we, the public, need to be reminded of these dangers?
We need dystopia more than ever now; we seem to have forgotten how it could happen here, given half the chance. We need to read Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury and Atwood. We need to absorb Butler, Kafka, Dick and Gibson.
The predictions these people made, sometimes years ago, have been terribly relevant since their inception. As a budding linguist, Orwell has been heavy on my mind for a while, particularly in how language and media are used to influence how people think and see the world. Philip K. Dick opened my eyes to how technology can, and indeed does, erase the objective reality around us.
But the thing is that most people, especially those who even read, tend to focus on that all-consuming drug of escapism.
I am also haunted by Brave New World’s depiction of a time where nobody wants to read Shakespeare, where mindless pleasure reigns supreme.
We are in a world where reading has become mostly escapism: the Romantasy, the Dark Romance, the LitRPGs and their Japanese cousins, the Isekai. It is fun to get seduced by the sexy bad boy who will dominate, kill you and love you (not always in that order). It is fun to get your head smashed in by Truck-kun and go to a magical world where women will want to sleep with your gormless ass.
But like many drugs, it doesn’t solve anything. While it is fine to indulge in weed or whatever substance you like, being wholly absorbed in the drug is not productive and enables the continued worsening of things. The apathy it produces doesn’t inspire or move, but rather numbs, resulting in a tacit acceptance of the ever-spiralling status quo.
By reducing Animal Farm to a movie about goofy animals getting into wacky capitalist shenanigans, Andy Serkis unintentionally continues the numbing of the culture, turning what is an effective tale of betrayal and tyranny into a discount Illumination product.
I hope that the people who see Serkis’ version will read the book and discover that it is not a silly story about silly animals.
I have no idea what the outcome will be. Best case, they read Animal Farm and come away better equipped to see the world around them. I just want to help people see problems in the world and work towards improving them.
