Most interesting film subtexts/allegories

[Moviedweeb]

Lord of the Rings is believed by many to be an allegory for World War II (although Tolkein has disputed this) while colinailism and concerns about the environment are clearly at the core of Avatar. Economic equality and the "one percent" are powerful themes TDKR and Elysium and X-men can be interpreted as dealing with social inequality and acceptance. 

 

What do you think are some of the most interesting or unexpected film subtexts or allegories?

[Hiccup]

X-Men franchise hands down as the best subtext/allegories of any film I have seen. It deals with social Darwinism, social inequality, and acceptance of different lifestyles. 

 

Prometheus also as a great subtext. Who is our creator? If he exists why does he allow bad things? 

 

The Hunger Games, Elysium, and The Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises all deal with the struggle between the lower class and upper classes, which is becoming more prominent in the USA and Europe in our decade. 

Edited January 19, 2014 by Hiccup

[Lordmandeep]

If the Dark Knight is about upper class and lower class, TDKR was a pretty damning film on the whole lower class movement income inequality movement. 

[Ozymandias]

Lord of the Rings is believed by many to be an allegory for World War II (although Tolkein has disputed this) while colinailism and concerns about the environment are clearly at the core of Avatar. Economic equality and the "one percent" are powerful themes TDKR and Elysium and X-men can be interpreted as dealing with social inequality and acceptance. 

 

What do you think are some of the most interesting or unexpected film subtexts or allegories?

 

The Lord of the Rings universe has so many themes/allegories but I'd say its biggest influence is Catholicism.  What do the Ainur, Valar, Maiar and land of Valinor(undying lands in the west) represent?  What does Middle Earth represent?  What does Mordor represent?  Who does Melkor(who later became Morgoth, which all evil originated from) and Sauron the Deceiver represent?

[Moviedweeb]

Well this was a dud, I would have really liked to hear some of your opinions on this.

[CaptainJackSparrow]

I had a really good one for Lion King. Scar is a flaming liberal, who promises the hyenas (AKA minorities) a bunch of food, when after he becomes king there is less food. Now for a liberal one to counter that, Cars 2 basically said the oil companies are keeping secret information on electric cars . (who knows, it's possibly true)

[CaptainJackSparrow]

If the Dark Knight is about upper class and lower class, TDKR was a pretty damning film on the whole lower class movement income inequality movement.

Well said.

[Webslinger]

Drag Me to Hell is actually about eating disorders. The whole thing isn't a series of supernatural events, but rather a series of hallucinations. I don't know that I believe the theory 100%, but the fact that the protagonist makes a clear effort to distance herself from her childhood as much as possible lends some credence to it.

[4815162342]

Inception is about making a movie

[baumer]

The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are about the changing political and social climate after the Vietnam War.  The 70's were a lot angrier than the 60's and Hooper and Craven have gone on record as saying such.

 

I found Mothman Prophecies to be filled with allegory.  Subjects like believing in God, believing in extra terrestrial life, and one that I found, perhaps that no one else really did is that that it was about conspiracies and how they are covered up and how the establishment completely kills a person's reputation when they seem to discover something that they shouldn't have.

[RobinHood26]

I had a really good one for Lion King.Scar is a flaming liberal, who promises the hyenas (AKA minorities) a bunch of food, when after he becomes king there is less food. 

 

Seriously.... 

[Jake Gittes]

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover:

 

Despite the lack of critical agreement however, undoubtedly one of the most common interpretations of the film is that it is an attack on theMargaret Thatcher led conservative government which was in power in the UK from 1975 to 1990. The film is often read as being a specific attack on the Community Charge which was proposed in 1986, passed in 1988 and introduced in 1989. This system of taxation replaced the standard rating system with a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult. The system was intensely unpopular, with opponents arguing that it shifted the burden of taxation from the rich to the poor. Shortly after the introduction of the system, the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federationwas established to co-ordinate the activities of the various Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) which had been set up across the whole of the UK. The ABAPTF called for mass non-payment, despite the fact that non-payment meant that people could be prosecuted. As the charges began to rise, more and more people followed the calls for non-payment (according to the BBC, some areas reached as high as 30% non-payment). In response, the government introduced harsher enforcement measures, leading to civil unrest and ultimately culminating in several Poll Tax Riots, the most serious of which occurred in London on 31st March, 1990, where over 200,000 people staged a protest in Trafalgar Square.

The film was released in the midst of these events, and a standard political reading at the time goes like this: the Cook (Richard Borst; played by Richard Bohringer) represents civil servants and dutiful citizens who do what they're told to do, even though they know it's wrong; the Thief (Albert Spica; played by Michael Gambon) represents Thatcherite arrogance, crassness and greed; the Wife (Georgina Spica; played by Helen Mirren) is an abstract notion of Britannia; the Lover (Michael; played by Alan Howard) is the ineffectual leftist opposition led by intellectuals who can only theorize about change rather than do anything to actively promote such change.

 

 

Also Barton Fink which I just saw a week ago. Hotel Earle as Hell, John Goodman

as the Devil

and all that. Although it's clear the Coens didn't really set out to make a perfect allegory, and there are a lot of things buried in that film.

[baumer]

I read Ebert's review of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. It went way over my head 20 years ago and I'd have to see it again to really try to understand it.  

[Jake Gittes]

I had no idea it was such a pointed allegory when I watched it, and I wouldn't have if I hadn't read the FAQ on IMDb. Good thing it's a movie that works perfectly even when you only take it on a surface level.

[dashrendar44]

Alien is about rape, especially the fear of men to be mouth-raped by a giant dong. (If you like Giger's art, that's all pretty obvious to you)

 

After Hours is a post-modern take on Ulysses odyssey into SoHo, NYC.

[grey ghost]

Alien also taps into the fear of a cancer that grows inside you to kill you and the female cancer survivor.

[dashrendar44]

Talking about cancer, The Fly (1986) is an allegory of cancer rotting your body literally (some even said AIDS), that subtext was inspired by Cronenberg's dad illness at the time.

 

Robocop is a twisted Jesus metaphor.

 

Iron Man 2 is an Atlas Shrugged adaptation in disguise.

Edited January 27, 2014 by dashrendar44

[Ezen Baklattan]

Ratatouille is a loose allegory on the LGBT movement. The main character wants to pursue his passion in life, even when society, and his family, try to convince him to follow the norms.

[Joel M]

Elsa's story in Frozen is about gay kids coming out

 

 

Inception is about making a movie

 

The Game is also about making a movie

[Blankments]

Ratatouille is a loose allegory on the LGBT movement. The main character wants to pursue his passion in life, even when society, and his family, try to convince him to follow the norms.

 

Insert any animated movie about believing in yourself (HTTYD, Cloudy 1) too