Generally I let whatever random piece of stupidity Fox News tries to pass off as real news go. Whenever I see the name 'Fox News' my brain automatically pulls up a laugh track to play in the background and I try not to get dizzy shaking my head. They do ridiculous things like misquote the Constitution and produce incorrect maps of the world. It would be humorous if there weren't people who followed them like their actually reporting real news. But when they attack my beloved Muppets - that's where I draw the line.
Recently Fox decided that Muppets were communist. I always knew there was something suspicious about that frog who would never commit to a pig. Communism. That must be it.
Spoiler Alert!
The latest Muppet movie surrounds a out of place young Muppet and his brother (who is human - can we talk about THAT for a moment? Who exactly was his mother sleeping with??) who goes to see his idols - the Muppets from the classic Muppet Show. Upon arriving at the old Muppet studios he finds them run down and sad. When he accidentally overhears that a mean old oil baron wants to drill for oil under the studios, thus tearing it down, our young hero sets out to find the gang and raise the money to bring the show back to life.
Throughout our story two humans struggle with their own relationship, Kermit spends two music montages recovering all our old favorites, familiar faces and props make the entire audience of 40-somethings go 'awww' and 'oh yeaaaaahhhhh', and subsequently make their children go 'What? It's a car. I don't get it.' The 4th wall is broken multiple times. There's more music, more dancing, more comedy, more of what we watch Muppets for. In the end our heroes fall short of saving the day but it all works out anyway because, well, they're Muppets!
I'd love to tell Fox News that my children came out of that movie theater with a new found hatred for the oil corporations and big business, because, after all, THAT is what the whole movie was about. That just isn't what happened. The 6 and 8 year old could tell us little more than the villain wanted to tear down the Muppet Studios. When pressed for a reason why their only answer was that he wanted to build a museum. Indoctrination: FAIL.
The 10 year old caught on that the villain wanted to drill for oil but her concern was for the animals that he may injure in the unlikely event he wanted to ship that oil to another country and there was an oil spill. Gee, oil companies. It seems you don't need a bunch of Muppets to tarnish your reputation in the eyes of children who are already pissed that you killed about bunch of dolphins in the Gulf. Did you have Muppet workers that caused that explosion and oil leak?
I have a question for Fox News. Did you watch Muppets as a child? Sesame Street? Fraggle Rock? The Muppet Show? I don't know too many 30-40 year olds who didn't. If their point was to push a liberal agenda we wouldn't have crap like Fox News because that type of thinking would have been eradicated during that indoctrination process.
It's pretty evident that the talking heads behind Fox News didn't even see the movie, since one of them actually said the villain was a "Muppet named Tex Richman". Actually he was a human. And because Kermit is a polite, well-mannered frog, he only referred to him as "Mr. Richman" so I didn't even catch that his first name was Tex.
I walked out of that movie nostalgic. They did an excellent job pulling from different shows and movies that we saw over the years. They hauled out the old props, the old gags, the pieces of my childhood that I kept wrapped in a little box in my heart. The dusted off what made them special - they accept everybody, and in the end that included Mr. Richman. There's always room for a few more friends. And you must have a heart of stone (or no heart at all) if you didn't get teary-eyed (or flat out sob) when the gang sang Rainbow Connection.
At that moment you are just in a land of happiness and rainbows - which is where children should be. They don't care about oil or corporations. Heck, they're not even going to care about that song until they're old enough to understand it. They want the jokes and slapstick comedy. They want to see Miss Piggy karate chop someone. They want to see Jack Black get tied up and forced into a celebrity telethon. They want to see Gonzo blow up and go flying across the stage. They want to see the multitude of facial reactions that Kermit can make. Kids have no concept of oil or corporations. They want no part of grown-up political drama. They just want to laugh and have a good time.
My suggestion to Fox News and people who think like them - remember what it was like to be a kid and grow a funny bone. They're Muppets, for cryin' out loud!
