Political Themes of TNT's ANIMAL FARM


TECHNOLOGIES OF CONTROL: TV AS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES

One of the major revisions this film version of ANIMAL FARM makes to Orwell's text is the addition of several forms of technology. The anxious farmers listen in to the goings on in the barn using surveillance equipment, and the pigs early on make the discovery that television has a soothing effect on the animals. Both of these additions establish and develop a similar theme: for all the good that technology can do, it also provides those who control it with the means to control others.

Technology was already a theme in Orwell's novel, though in a slightly different way. Snowball devises his plan to build the windmill because he believes in both the practical and symbolic value of technological advances. The windmill will save labor on the farm, and will therefore achieve the philosophical end of advancing the liberation of animals from toil. But it will also intimidate the neighbors, and act as a sign for the intelligence and ingenuity of the pigs. Technological ability is a tool of the state, advertising its health and vitality.

TNT's ANIMAL FARM takes this theme one step further: television becomes the ultimate form of packaging for advertising the political message. In this way, two themes overlap: the pigs' control over media technology allows them to produce newsreel-style programming; in turn, they are able to produce the ultimate propaganda. In Orwell's text the pigs control the most basic technology of all: written language. TNT's version takes this technological control one step further, giving the pigs control over the transmission of visual information as well. And the animals are powerless in the face of technology because they are unable to tear their eyes away from the mesmerizing glow of the screen.

• How is TV used today?
• How does the immediacy of information impact its messages?
• Why does television attract such an audience? What do people like about it?
• How large a role does television play in the political process in the United States? What consequences does this have?
• Where do most people get the information they use to form their political opinions?
• How much thought do you think politicians give to entertainment value when they want to influence voters? How much do they "spin" their answers when they are asked questions?
• Is it possible to be too cynical about politics? Is it fair to say that "everything is spin"?

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