The new "Muppets" movie is a plot to brainwash kids and turn them against capitalism, according to pundits on a Fox News program on Monday.
Angered that the new movie depicts “Tex Richman,” an oil mogul and, as host Eric Bolling described him, “a successful businessman,” the conservative news host asked the question: “Are liberals trying to brainwash your kids against capitalism?”
“Absolutely and they've been doing it for decades,”said Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center (MRC), adding, “It's amazing how far the left will go to manipulate your kids and give them the anti-corporate message.”
He went on to list several television programs such as Captain Planet as evidence that children have been “indoctrinating” for years to make them believe that corporations and oil companies are “bad.”
Co-host Andrea Tanteros agreed with Gainor, saying, “Why can’t liberals leave little kids alone? Why does there have to be a political message? I thought ‘Sesame Street’ was supposed to be about sharing and being nice to people?”
The MRC has been critical of Hollywood and its depiction of Big Oil. On Tuesday, Nov. 29, the conservative group wrote: “Whether writing for kids or adults, Hollywood portrays oil and successful businessmen as evil.” The group also listed movies like "Syriana", "The Day After Tomorrow", and "There Will Be Blood" as proof of a “left-wing assault on oil.”
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As proof, the MRC cited "Cars 2" director John Lasseter, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in which the director admitted that "big oil" was an inspiration when he was trying to create an "über" bad guy. In the interview, Lasseter told WSJ:
"We revamped the whole story, the whole bad-guy arc. To me, there always needs to be a logic to our movies. No matter what subject matter it is, they have to be logical for the world we’re creating. I kept thinking about, 'OK. A spy movie in the world where cars are alive. What would be a really good kind of über bad guy? Who is an über bad guy?' I kept going to big oil. This is before what happened in the Gulf of Mexico.
Why isn’t alternative fuel more… Why isn’t everybody jumping on that bandwagon? It makes so much sense: Electricity, solar, whatever. There’s ethanol. There’s all this stuff you could be doing. And so I thought, well, that could be really cool in that you could have big oil versus alternative fuel. That’s when we kind of crafted the bad guy’s story."
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