If you watched The Angry Birds Movie and saw just a shameless cash grab to milk the last penny out of a once ubiquitous but now waning mobile app, you need to get your eyes checked.
This film is not just another saccharine kids flick but a parable of immigration. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either a racist screed against the migrants flooding into Europe, or a ripoff of Avatar that celebrates the defeat of a band of would-be conquistadores.
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Angry Birds tells the story of a race of birds living isolated on an island. The angriest bird, Red, can’t fit in because he’s too darn angry. But then a race of pigs land on the island crushing Red’s house and seduce the rest of the birds with parties and food. Only Red is suspicious of these newcomers. His fears are eventually realized when the pigs make off with the town’s eggs and Red must save the day by slingshotting himself at the pigs’ castle. It really only makes sense if you’ve played the game.
But is Red the island’s Donald Trump or Geronimo? Xenophobe or freedom fighter?
Forbes calls Angry Birds “a pretty obvious parable for European colonialism and the horrors which it brought to indigenous peoples.”
But the Guardian had different ideas.
[Red] is the only one who thinks the arrival of pigs to his native island is anything other than a multicultural delight. Technically, this suggests Red is an instinctive racist, but my guess is that his suspicions will be vindicated. (Of course, that will make the moral of the story that it’s right to fear and mistrust strangers. Sounds problematic. Someone consult Twitter.)
Australia’s Impulse Gamer had the strongest words to mince with the apparently racist angry birds.
Out of all the films I’ve seen this year, this is the one I least expected to have an anti-immigration and an eye for an eye message underneath it. But it’s actually happened. Angry Birds is now a metaphor for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
9/11 too! Who knew a movie that most critics found barely enjoyable save for a drawn-out pee gag could have so many veiled messages.
https://twitter.com/Mr_Martin81/status/732259911887925249
But the people who found the film most enjoyable were actually racists.
“I’m sorry but am I the only one who thinks this whole thing is taking shots at the migrant “pigs” who are flooding into Europe, stealing our women and trying to kill of [sic] our race?” said a user on Stormfront, the web’s premiere white power forum.
Someone on 4chan/pol/ even made this handy graphic to explain the allegory.
The Angry Bird Movie clearly has delights for the whole family. Children of all ages, racists, anti-colonialists and SJWs who love spotting heavily buried racist themes will be walking out of the theaters asking for more.
Hopefully box office receipts will be strong and we get to see an Angry Birds 2, tackling a new hot button issue like abortion or the right to die.
