I’ve never seen the film version of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” so I recently watched a copy of the older, animated version of the book. I appreciated the ability to be able refresh my memories of this great work through the film, while able to accomplish some other busy work at the same time.
To refresh the memories of the reader here, Animal Farm tells the story of an alcoholic farmer who neglects the care of his animals, so the animals unite and organize themselves, running the drunken farmer off the premises. The animals then take over the operation of the farm, doing the work without the direction of the farmer and having much success, exceeding that of the farm under the direction of the farmer. They rename their farm “Animal Farm” in defiance.
The pigs begin teaching the animals how to read, so that they will be less vulnerable to domination in the future.
As with the book that I last revisited about five years ago, I am most impressed with the list of rules that the animals paint on the side of Animal Farm’s barn for all to see. The pigs make their bold statements and new code for living on the barn as a reminder.
The film proved to be the same for me, and perhaps it made even more of an impact by virtue of some of their depictions. I loved the dripping, wet paint. “Four legs good. Two legs bad.”
The ruling class, the pigs, paint soon discover the need to amend the list to “cover their backsides” and find justification for their new, human-like behaviors. The rule stating that “No animal shall sleep in a bed” must be modified, for the bourgeois pigs have developed a fond appreciation for the comfort of the farmer’s abandoned bed. T
hey amend the rule with a clause that clarifies their “original” intended meaning so that the rule “rightly” reads “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” In the film, I appreciate the small detail of an obviously different color and appearance of the paint used to paint the amendment clause.
The rule of “No animal shall harm another animal” must be revised as well after Napoleon, the pig in charge, orders the second episode of execution of his dissenters. How this smacks of Robespierre’s ironic end during the French Revolution!
The rule is amended to read “No animal shall harm another animal without cause.”
Near the end of the film and the story, when the bourgeois pigs no longer resemble pigs but look more like the humans they have overrun, they paint the most poignant amendment of all.
“All animals are equal,
but some are more equal than others.”
"Paul Preaching In Athens" by Raphael
A friend of mine noted once that a phase from one of my favorite hymns, “Victory in Jesus,” always makes her laugh because “He plunged me to victory” conjures up the image of a toilet plunger for her. About 95% of the time, when we refer to“plunge” in our contemporary society, we use the word in reference the process of plunging a blocked toilet with a red rubber toilet plunger on a wooden handle. Likewise, when the hymn was written in 1939 and during the time that the author was raised, indoor flushing toilets were still somewhat new in very many homes. As a consequence, the first image to pop into the author’s head was not likely a red toilet plunger, but rather this physical dynamic of water alone. The translation of meaning between the era in which the hymn was written and our current era creates ambiguity.
From a reader:
Of the many oddities of post-Christian culture, many in the church seem to have also inherited a tendency towards a type of postmodern discernment (or lack thereof). Postmodernism prefers intuitive reasoning and many Christians who have been raised in the era of postmodernism prefer it as well. "Heart knowledge" is preferred to "head knowledge" in many denominations, thus many Christian leaders actually teach this kind of subjective reasoning and validation of truth. Also consider that we are now bombarded with considerably more information that we can reasonably consider, and ideology is now marketed right along with goods and services. If we possess adequate discernment skills, we may have no time or opportunity to objectively evaluate things, especially ideas.
Here's my second attempt at posting a new comment on Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin’s new film, ”The Return of the Daughters.” I sent my first attempt into cyberspace oblivion. There are so many things about the film that are disturbing to me, and I was amazed to see how “emotionally engaged” my very logical husband became when we viewed it together. 
