Who loves the Indiana Jones franchise? Me. Even The Temple of Doom. Even (gulp) Kate Capshaw. Even (gulp, wipe sweat from upper lip) when they brought in the aliens with crystal skeletons.
But it doesn't take a part-time professor to realize that the Indy movies are, structurally, a perfect exercise in the most simplistic dichotomy. Heroes vs. villains, battling over who controls the uncontrollable: an indifferent, omniscient, vaguely spiritual source of power. Easy-to-hate villains who want to be gods. Heroes who can't let that happen.
Yes, I like Indy,
(transition. stay with me here)
but I love Animal Farm for way it rejects this way of story telling. There's so much confusion among the characters in Animal Farm. None of them have clear paths - most of them are just trying to make it through another day. Snowball (as Trotsky) represents the well-intended. Only Napoleon and Squealer are true villains. And bumbling, inexperienced villains at that. None of the other characters can really be classified as a hero. Certainly not Boxer - too dense, too misdirected. He becomes the anti-hero. Is it cynical to think that this is more like real life?
One or two bad eggs.
No heroes.
A multitude of onlookers, too caught up in their own survival to assert change.
A handful of privileged pigs, content to wear their blinders.
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