The Sociological Concepts Of Karl Marx In The Film A Bug's Life

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Recommended: The Karl Marx contribution to the development of sociology

“It 's a bug-eat-bug world out there, princess. One of those Circle of Life kind of things. Now let me tell you how things are supposed to work: The sun grows the food, the ants pick the food, the grasshoppers eat the food...”(Anderson,) Many people have seen this animated Disney Pixar film A Bug’s Life about a colony of ants working hard during the summer to collect food for an unsavory gang of grasshoppers led by Hopper (Kevin Spacey). However, one ant Flik (Dave Foley) accidentally knocks over the ceremonial leaf, which contains the season’s takings. Flik then sets out to find help in the ‘big city’, he enlists a troupe of travelling circus bugs to fight the grasshoppers off under the impression that they are warriors. At the end of the …show more content…

This paper will prove that the Marxist theories, division of class and class conscious are used in the film through the characters and their interactions. It will begin with identifying the class divisions present, and then mention how these different classes interact and how class consciousness is seen in the film.
Karl Marx’s definition of social class is class is determined by relationship to the means of production and source or income, in the film the cloud of grasshoppers having high social class in comparison to of the colony of ants who have low class value. Many of the different characters in the film can be classified in Marxist terms of class divisions. Marx believed that society was divided by class, the clouds of grasshoppers are seen as the Bourgeoisies or the owing class meaning they are the owners of the means of production or the capitalists, this is seen when every new season …show more content…

To be able to get the ants to keep working, the grasshoppers told the aunts that they will protect hem from other bugs that are dangerous making the aunts feel as if their lives depend on there the Proletariat can only survive only by selling their labor power in exchange of labor or in this case protection. One of the most famous lines in the movie about how the grasshoppers depend on the aunts for survival “Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life!” Furthermore, Marx said that it is possible that the working class can take over the owning class, at the end of the movie despite the grasshopper’s power the aunts stand up for the selves and achieve class consciousness in order to beat the class

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