New addition to essential communist theory. This one might be more important than Animal farm.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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chapotraphouse
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But the movie isn't even about communists? It's about Rasputin and his evil wizard powers and his funny talking bat sidekick?
his name is Bartok ok?
That shit was just a formulaic recounting of a thousand "forgotten princess/prince goes on heroes journey" stories bolstered by the axis of cauc's fascination with Anastasia imposters.
Watching Birth of a Nation, I realized I had been lied to as a child in Ohio
I was taught that the Union and black people were always the heroes of history. This movie showed me you could view them with fear and hatred.
Lmfao, as far as I remember it from when I was a kid the bad guy of this movie is zombie Rasputin not the bolsheviks
He's a lich but otherwise yes the Bolsheviks just sort of seized the opportunity provided by evil wizard rasputin
Communism bad because the aristocracy couldnt have fancy parties anymore
dang I can't believe Mao would be so mean to these people who would have viewed me as expendable cattle 
Anastasia just came out? Have the last three decades been a fever dream?
This reads like an onion article. I refuse to believe that one movie can change or form someone’s political ideology.
Hmm maybe. But have you seen Chicken Run?
Mel Gibson was in the movie and he still ended up being Mel Gibson
Watching a propaganda film, I uncritically swallowed the exact takeaways its producers intended me to have.
Watching a film about how all dogs go to heaven, I realized I had been lied to as a child in church
The preacher doesn't want you to know that dog is god spelled backwards 
The romanovs, famous smol bean rulers who were unjustly overthrown by rasputin and nobody else
I've always been astounded by that movie, the fact that a Western corpo media company had a chance, in the 90s, to portray communism as inarguably the villain, in a children's film, which tend to be subject to far less scrutiny than adult media, and they didn't do it.
But, then, they'd have had to give Lenin a badass villain song. Which would absolutely have been the Let It Go of its day. And obviously no one wanted that.
The 90s resulted in people in the west being way less harsh on communism in fiction, because as far as the west was concerned, communism had "failed." You can't make an intimidating and scary villain who also has an "incompetent" and "failed" ideology behind them. This is why the only communist villains from that time are in stuff like the Red Alert series, silly, campy villains trying to undo and rewrite history, relics of bygone era.
That explains a lot, actually.
This is what they do in the musical adaptation
That is... Very good for what it is, in context. More nuance than I'd expect.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Was Rasputin the spectre of communism all along?
I love spooky stuff so itd be cool but it wouldnt be materialist at all.
Sounds like a cool alternative history story tho, swap Lenin with rasputin and see what happens
Incidentally, this is the plot to the film The King's Man. Including a rad mid-credit scene of Lenin and Hitler chumming it up like, "How do you do, comrade Hitler? You and I are exactly the same, I being Lenin the communist, and you Hitler the fascist. We're going to make a sequel to this World War."
I think if I saw that on screen while enjoying a terrible Cold War movie with my dad, I'd probably accidentally and involuntarily break whatever was in my hand at the time. But then, I've always liked to call myself a "Leninist" and a "Bolshevik", rather than more modern terms, so maybe I'm a little more prone to Lenin's cult of personality than most modern Western commies.
Who would win, revolutionaries that risked life and limb to create a better world, or, one animated cartoon that says communism bad?
I've seen this article before!
Proof that having communist theory shoved down your throat since before you can walk, won't necessarily make sure you follow the party line forever. But at the same time, I'm jealous of most of these "defectors" for having gotten to have that experience as kids.
Harry Potter and Disney cartoons are actually Liberal theory
i get all my political opinions from children's media
I know everyone is trashing on this but we do the same thing with movies like A Bugs Life that are very clearly marxist and i personally think that we need more media like it.
Ghibli movies in particular were kinda formative and important for me and I am not sure if I would be a communist today if not for Miyazaki's works.
Of all the slop, the Bluth movie where he gave up and made a Disney Princess musical.
And people to this day think it’s a Disney made film lol that’s how formulaic it was
Disneyland parks sell Anastasia merch at their stores.
That’s because of the Fox Studios acquisition. Even before that people thought it was a Disney film. I’m not sure if Don Bluth was flattered or insulted by that.
I watched a cartoon and I am mad about it.