An Animal Farm for our times
Originally conceived by George Orwell as a satirical allegory for the Russian Revolution and the subsequent struggles of the USSR under the rule of Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm’s political ire is redirected in this lively CG-animated adaptation directed by Andy Serkis. Rather than Stalinism, Serkis takes aim at greed, rapacious consumerism and corporate corruption and malfeasance. There’s also a timely dig at populist political movements.
I’ll fix that for you: “Originally a satirical allegory for the evils and lies of Communism, the Russian Revolution, and the subsequent struggles of the USSR under the rule of Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm’s political ire is perverted in this lively CG-animated adaptation directed by Andy Serkis. Rather than Stalinism, Serkis takes aim at its opposite, capitalism, emphasizing the greed, consumerism and corporate corruption that can accompany it. There’s also a dig at populist political movements such as Trump’s.”
More from the review:
But while it may struggle to satisfy diehard Orwell purists, the film still takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the power of the collective – albeit one which permits us a little more hope than was present in Orwell’s 1945 novella.
I’ll fix that for you: “But while it should outrage those who’ve read the Orwell original, the film still takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the power of the collective, things the original work mocked as propagandist lies that the left always betrays. This gives present-day leftists a little more hope than was present in Orwell’s 1945 novella.”
ADDENDUM: there’s an odd contradiction in Orwell, because he was a lifelong socialist and yet he criticized Communism, which is a form of socialism. I wrote about that in this post.
There’s also a new Orwell documentary that I’ve read does something similar, perverting Orwell’s work to promote leftist ideology.
well Andy Serkis has been a villain in the marvel verse, and also in the planet of the Apes re imagination, one wonders what it would like if Snowball had written it,
one recalls the manual of the perfect latinamerican idiot, that tried to debunk the foolishness that a generation of leftists, had sowed,
then came Chavez and it was the unlearning again,
Marisa:
Well, there’s an odd contradiction in Orwell, because he was a lifelong socialist and yet he criticized Communism, which is a form of socialism. I wrote about that in this post.
True, Neo. But apparently this film is a serious bit of anti-Trump, anti-conservative propaganda.
Marisa:
That’s my impression, as well.
How Orwellian of it. 🙂
Orwell was the John Fetterman of socialism.
Orwell lived at a time when one could maybe convince oneself that Socialism was a kinder, gentler version of Communism without the gulags. As you note in the linked post, he may have known better, but didn’t shed the label, akin to today’s few honest Democrats like John Fetterman and Bari Weiss. Now we know that the only system compatible with freedom is capitalism, which Hayek had figured out by the 1940s. Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (1962) was probably the most influential book in my own change from left (based on my parents’ views) to right (at age 18).
Here is what Orwell thought about the matter. It’s the clearest statement I know of that addresses it directly:
https://jjmilt.substack.com/p/george-orwells-1944-review-of-the
This is the key point: “But he does not see, or will not admit, that a return to ‘free’ competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter.”
Disputable, yes. Demonstrably false? Not that I’ve seen. I hope he’s wrong.
Disputable, yes. Demonstrably false? Not that I’ve seen. I hope he’s wrong.
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Yes, demonstrably false. There are sectors where the default market structure is monopoly. They account for about 2% of value added in the economy.
Honestly the big thing I thought of when it came to Animal Farm and this is how would they even try to make it work. The original Animal Farm does indeed take potshots at capitalism in the form of Farmer Jones and the other human farmers, who are used as sort of a composite of Neo-absolutism like the Tsar, the “bourgeoise” capitalist governments, and Fascism. And Orwell was a socialist albeit one bitterly disappointed with most forms of socialism and communism, as Neo said. So I am not entirely saying it can’t be done.
The big issue I see is that is never the main focus of the story, which is about hypocrisy and the “liberators” becoming what they fought against or worse, with the focus on Marxist-Leninism and especially Stalin. That means it follows a very specific plot arc. So what would adapting it to target modern capitalism or corporate entities even fit as?
Farmer Jones runs farm in typical profit minded corporate slaughter farm where most animals never see the light of day (sadly true)? (Or maybe have him be a communal farm overseer in say the Soviet Union, if you really want to lean in to the Muh Russia/Putin/post Soviet angle, with all animals being held in kind and suffering for the tragedy of the commons and corrupt, idiotic economic policy$. Only for a visionary old pig aping… say… Hayek/Mises/Rand comes up and gives a vision of how things could be, of each animal being able to be free and seize the means of their own property to stop being property and live as free people before being overturned? Only for the likes of Snowball and Napoleon (imitating both their literary forms but maybe the likes of Musk and Bezoz) to help lead the revolution that drives our Farmer Jones (maybe used ala some of the major protests or riots like what happens at FOXCONN in China) resulting in the new owners taking over the corporation and making all animals… say.. worker-shareholders able to set their own hours, work as much as they want or as little, and so on?
Only for Napoleon and Snowball to start fighting like they do. And trying to buy up, seize, kill, or so on the shares in a brutal corporate struggle that gradually reduces the animals back to serfdom? Complete with Squealer serving as corporate media hack? Maybe culminating in Napoleon winning by calling in Jones or some other neighboring farmers to get the resources to crush his opponents?
I’m not saying that can’t work. Indeed it could be quite useful and interesting, even as a dark comedy. The issue is you have to think hard on it and fit the themes and system to the plot arc and themes of the main work. I do think it COULD work because Animal Farm is about tyranny, oppression, hypocrisy, and giving up hard fought freedom, and while that is tied directly to Communism and Stalin and Lenin and Marx, it is universal enough it could be targeted at modern corporations or capitalism while fitting, I feel, and even ringing true to Orwell’s intent. Indeed if you were really smart you’d adopt facets of things from Orwell’s reporting like the Road to Wigham Pier, like mine owners essentially forcing workers to get their life saving gear on loan just to do their job.
But I don’t think that’s what happened here.
Most people today interact with corporations much more than they interact (directly) with the government, which implies that they are going to see more unpleasant behavior from corporations than from government even if the incidence of such behavior is the same.
See this Substack post by someone who is having her belief in the free market shaken:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-181238116
I just had an almost equally unpleasant experience with my primary bank, M&T. (Bank of America is worse)
It is interesting that the vast expansion of university-level management training in recent decades has not led to any improvement of management of organizations at the operational-level, indeed perhaps the opposite.
Slick hair good, orange hair bad!
Serkis is messing with the Mount Rushmore of 20th C political literature. Well, Serkis did play Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” films. 🙂
I find the final line of the review dubious as well:
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Serkis’ version of Animal Farm is a coming-of-age picture that argues that our best hope for a better future rests with the younger generation.
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Oh goodie. We haven’t yet recovered from the 60s younger generation. Today’s cohort seems even more confused.
Corporations have been weighed down by DEI and DoL edicts, some perhaps voluntary but mostly imposed. I just had to waste a couple of hours on mandated sexual harassment training, for example. Meanwhile the snowflake culture among employees is rampant. It’s all resulted in cancerous growth of HR departments that only care about protection from legal actions by employees and/or the government. I suspect it’s also contributed to the growth of automated customer service, to the point that it’s very hard to find an actual live person to help solve a problem.
@Jimmy: I suspect it’s also contributed to the growth of automated customer service, to the point that it’s very hard to find an actual live person to help solve a problem.
AI isn’t a silver bullet, but I have found it quite helpful in navigating automated customer service. Some of AI’s information is outdated, but it can still be useful in drilling down and generating alternatives.
It’s taken my blood pressure down several points when I have to gird my loins and do battle with what passes for customer service.
–James Taylor, “You’ve Got A Friend (Official Audio)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKaWQxlTsRM
A truth in today’s work environment is that any interaction with HR is best avoided. “Catbert” of Scott Adam’s Dilbert is not an exaggeration.
Orwell was 46 when he died, which is about the age when you realize that much of what you believe is BS. Who knows where he would have ended up if he had lived longer? That said, I found much of the fun of Animal Farm was decoding the “real” names of the characters and comparing the plot to actual history. I don’t see how the new version can do that. And the lesson I got from the book was that, despite ideology, nature will tell. Human nature will always be with us.
Maybe Serkis’s next TARGET will be Aesop!
He and his cohort should have a whole lotta fun with that project…
File under: Serkis animals….
Serkis might also consider remaking “The Lives of Others” as a musical…with Trump and MAGA as master villains…
“Fabricated Case Against Former AfD MEP Collapses Before German Court”—
…Speaking of which, the current German authorities really have to brush up on their technique:
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/fabricated-case-against-former-afd-mep-collapses-before-german-court/
If you read his collected letters and essays in four volumes, you find that he, despite having seen much of government idiocy, thought that making the government socialist would miraculously cure all that. Indeed, he thought declaring it socialist was all it took to get workers to identify with it.
Wiki says that Orwell was taught French by Aldous Huxley at Eton “public school” in England. Also that his father “worked as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service, overseeing the production and storage of opium for sale to China.”
Re Orwell’s time as a police superintendant in Burma, Wiki says:
I found the Wiki article quite interesting. It states “Orwell’s will requested that no biography of him be written…”
Any discussion of Orwell’s beliefs and motivation should take into consideration his experiences fighting on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell got to see the practical application of Communism from both ends of the rifle in Catalonia especially after his faction fell out of favor which led to various inconveniences that proved fatal to some of his compatriots and very nearly Orwell himself, which tends to sharpen one’s focus marvelously. Reference his Homage to Catalonia which frankly I got a hell of a lot more out of than Animal Farm, possibly because it’s much more direct and much less subtle. Your mileage, of course, may vary and quite often does.
Art Deco on December 13, 2025 at 5:31 pm said:
Disputable, yes. Demonstrably false? Not that I’ve seen. I hope he’s wrong.
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Yes, demonstrably false. There are sectors where the default market structure is monopoly. They account for about 2% of value added in the economy.
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How does that demonstrate that Orwell’s argument is false?
One problem with the free marketeers’ argument is that it relies on companies obeying the law, not engaging in extortion or fraud. But that puts reliance right back on the state we’ve been assured was malign. And of course, companies are not exactly averse to a little bribery of those who should enforce the law.
— Eeyore
He’s not entirely wrong. When he says that free markets are unstable and tend to end in the emergence of either monopoly or (more often) oligopoly, he’s just stating the obvious. We can see the pattern over and over in history. Today in the USA, if you look closely at the nested ownership structures and so forth, an amazing percentage of the wealth is controlled by a handful of companies, directly or indirectly.
He’s also right that voters won’t tolerate the lack of personal security associated with untrammeled free markets. That’s not to say that voters always choose full socialism, but they won’t willingly allow the level of free markets advocated by people like Hayek or Rand, either. They just don’t have the necessary risk tolerance.
What Holly is talking about is a process that Cory Doctorow (himself a socialist-leaning commentator) calls ‘enshittification’.
The reason for it is that what we’re calling a free market economy is in actual fact increasingly an oligopoly. The major corporate players simply don’t face much in the way of real competition. There are only a handful of players, they all more or less act as a body, so if customers don’t like how they’re treated…tough. They have no recourse.
If there were dozens of service providers all competing on price and service, yeah, the free market would discipline the bad behavior. But there are not. In a steadily growing percentage of the economy, esp. the service economy, there are a handful of providers who deliberately don’t compete.
The tech industry is a classic example. Silicon Valley is no longer a tech center, it’s a financial center. The big tech companies (depending on who you ask, there are probably four or five of them) only pretend to compete. Likewise they don’t really innovate much anymore. Instead, when a potential rival emerges, they buy it and shut it down. If the owner won’t sell, they sue him into oblivion. They don’t have to win the suits to exhaust the upstart’s resources fighting it.
That’s why Google Search is increasingly worthless, why Windows long ago stopped improving.
Don’t like it when corporate service is made up of Indians who barely speak English and have no authority to help you and don’t even understand the issue? Well, you can go to one of the few rival companies, who will have customer service made up of Indians who barely speak English and have no authority to help you and don’t even understand the issue. They deliberately don’t compete.
In fact, they struggle desperately to suppress it. That’s what ‘right to repair’ is about, the big automakers and farm machinery makers want to force everyone into their corporate repair shops and put the mom and pop independents out of business.
Or to put it another way, it’s an old cliche that no Socialist ever hated free markets as much as successful Capitalists do, and it’s a cliche for a reason.
OTOH, Serkis might decide to do an animated film on BLM…or rather, SBLM**:
“Nigeria’s Christians Are Caught in A Tide Of Jihadi Violence”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nigerias-christians-are-caught-tide-jihadi-violence
** Perhaps that should be BLMBSMMTO.
How does that demonstrate that Orwell’s argument is false?
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I can explain something to you. I cannot comprehend it for you.
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But that puts reliance right back on the state we’ve been assured was malign.
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The state may be malign, or it may simply be ill-equipped to perform certain functions.
Oligopoly is the default market structure in certain industries. Yes such producers compete. (The situation in re Bertrand oligopolies is similar to perfect competition).
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I have encountered dissatisfying service from banks, insurance companies, hospitals, and physicians. All heavily regulated industries.