Social Classes, Class Conflicts and Class Struggles Portrayed in A Bug’s Life Movie: 1998 by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton
Humans are social-beings who live by experiencing a lot of events they may not know or expect. Through all the events humans experience, humans are going to be shaped inversely and they are going to differ from one another. The differences we usually see in daily life are strength and weakness, which are two of many possibilities that differ humans, and they are obviously going to take human-beings into some kind of a class classification. This class classification takes people into different social classes in which some are considered to have higher level and some with lower level. We cannot choose what social class we want to be, but the class itself chooses who will be in the social class. Since social classes are created, many conflicts will also happen among the classes. People may fight each other for having different opinions, having different ideology or even something much worse. From this, those who are in lower class may try to get into upper class, so that people will not look down on them.
To bring a clearer example of how class classification takes people into different social classes, the writer will be providing a literary work of how social classes occur. The writer chooses a movie A Bug’s Life: 1998 by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, a movie about the life of ants and how they are dominated by a group of grasshoppers. A male ant finally begins to do something about the colony and wants to help the queen on solving the problem they are all facing. He then decides that he will go on a journey to look for some help from outsiders. In the movie, it shows how the ants are being powerfully ruled by the grasshoppers because they think that they are way weaker than the grasshoppers which have wings to fly and bigger bodies. The ants have been doing the same thing over and over again, even for years. They have to serve the grasshoppers because of the fear of getting killed by other bugs. The story doesn’t go well for the main character because everything that he does just seems so impossible to be done and no one cares about him. He then finally comes to a decision that they, ants, are strong and smart creature just like the grasshoppers are. Making a single change for the colony, from all his failures, to a bright future.
To help the writer analyze this case deeper, the writer has chosen a relevant theory regarding to the topic. The theory is Marxism which is a theory invented by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). From this theory the writer will discuss the theory further with using social class, base and superstructure, class conflict and class struggle. Social class is a group of people living together with the same social backgrounds. It deals with social backgrounds people have, so the more people live in a place, the bigger chance that social classes may differ from one another. Base and superstructure is the simplest form of Marxist model of society according to Barry (2009). Base structure is the material means of production, distribution and exchange, while Superstructure is the cultural world of ideas, art, religion, law, etc. For class conflict, according to Schryer (1990, p. 20), the Marxist term ‘class conflict’ is reserved for those rare situations where a subordinate ethnic group is engaged in revolutionary struggle in a classical colonial situation. Class conflict occurs when there are higher and lower class, when the lower class struggles to get their level to be higher. And for the last, class struggle, according to Houtman (2003, p. 5), “Marx consequently views exploitation, labor conflicts, and class struggle as normal and inevitable side effects of capitalism.” So, class struggle is how people in lower class try to do something to get be considered to have the same level as the higher class (or at least almost on the same level). From these theories, the writer will be able to find out what lies behind the movie (what kind of class classification is put into the movie). The last one is symbol which is an intrinsic literary device used to add more meanings to the work. According to DiYanni (2001, p. 95), “Symbols in fiction are simply objects, actions, or events that convey meaning.” The meaning that symbols give may contain deeper meaning which represent an object. Even small actions, utterances, and events can have deeper meaning that they are supposed to when there is symbol in them.
Marxism signs that occur in this movie are the way the grasshoppers treat and give orders to the ant colony. The grasshoppers command the ants to collect food for them and then they are going to take a really big amount of food. This shows how grasshoppers have higher class than the ants and the ants are really afraid of grasshoppers. Grasshoppers have bigger bodies and the ants consider that grasshoppers are physically stronger than them. They obey and do what the grasshoppers want them to do. The other sign that occurs is classes among the ants themselves. The queen and her children, who are the princesses, seem to have higher level than the worker ants. The queen and her children have the power and right to command the other ants while the other ants have to obey the orders. The reason why the writer mentions that the queen and the princesses have higher class than the worker ants is because the queen and the princesses wear a crown-like flower on their heads. It’s something that can only be wore by only some specific characters. The crown-like flower itself symbolizes the power of the queen and the princesses as they have the power and right to rule. Among the worker ants, there are also ants (usually elders) seem to be in the middle level because they can give orders to the worker ants. Middle class and lower class ants also have their own symbols, as for middle class ants, some use something like a piece of paper to do some particular kind of jobs such as counting how many foods have been collected or to count how many ants who are back to the base after working. This shows that they still have to work, but they don’t do works like the worker ants do. For the worker ants, they use equipment while working, like collecting food, cutting pants, etc. This equipment symbolizes how they are on lower class because they have to work using the equipment for the others & queen.
In this movie, social classes are divided into two classes, upper and lower class. Even though there are only two classes, in the classes themselves, there are even more classes. Grasshoppers are in the upper class, with Hopper as the leader of the upper class. Hopper and his friends consider themselves to be in the upper class because they think that they are stronger than the ants whose work is to gather food and serve them with it. As a species of bug with strong physical structure and wings to fly, grasshoppers are really feared with many species of bugs. This makes them to enslave the ants, showing the gap of the classes they have.
The lower class is the ants, in which they have to work and gather food for the grasshoppers. The ants are really afraid of the grasshoppers because they think grasshoppers are really scary and strong since there is a grasshopper who loses of control. Hopper even does harms to his fellow grasshoppers in front of the ants and this makes the ants even more scared to grasshoppers. These lower class ants need to work for both the grasshoppers and themselves. They gather food before rainy season comes for the grasshoppers and for themselves. Even though the ants don’t think about being in a lower class, but this shows how the ants are being used as a tool by the grasshoppers. They are lowering their class without realizing because they don’t have the courage to fight back.
Picture 1 (00:11:52) “Let's just think about the logic, shall we? Think about it for a second. If it was up there, would I be coming down here, to your level, looking for it?” Hopper to Princess Atta.
Picture 1 shows that Hopper considers himself to have a higher level than the ants. The phrase “…. would I be coming down here, to your level……” is the hint of how he thinks that he is in upper class while the ants are just his servants. He wants to show the ants that he is scary and the ants have to obey him no matter what, even the Queen.
Picture 2 (01:18:35) “You piece of dirt! No, I'm wrong. You're lower than dirt. You're an ant!” Hopper to Flik and other ants.
Picture 2 also shows that Hopper lowers the ants’ class, he even says that they are lower than dirt. He thinks that the ants are weak and they are just servants for him, but they try to fight grasshoppers. This makes Hopper becomes very angry to find out that an ant wants to fight him. He says that idea is a very dangerous thing “Let this be a lesson to all you ants. Ideas are very dangerous things.” He states this because he thinks that ants can’t think like he does, so he tells the ants to be careful about ideas.
In the lower class, where the ants live in, there are also 3 more classes that the writer finds out interesting. Upper, middle and lower class are also created here because they divide the works for the ants. For the upper class, there are the Queen and Princess Atta, which is later followed by Dot, Atta’s little sister. The Queen is the one who rules all the colony and gives orders about what to do and Princess Atta, who is getting trained to be the next Queen, does half of the jobs because she’s a bit nervous to take over everything. The Queen and Princess Atta have a crown-like flower on their heads and it shows that they are on a special pair of shoes because no one uses it unless them. For the middle class ants, there are some elders and common ants, but maybe they get the job from the Queen. They have the jobs to count how many foods have been collected and sometimes criticize or give orders to the other worker ants. For the lower class ants, who are the worker ants, their job is to collect food, repair any damaged things around their base and help on doing stuff. They are just basically normal ants, have nothing special, no wings and even no specific position. The amount of worker ants are so many and they spend their days collecting food for the Queen and grasshoppers. Flik, one of the worker ants, is the main character and the one who is willing to do something new to help the others, but always ends up with failures. He is also the only worker ant that may have uniqueness and speciality which the other worker ants don’t have. He later has like a higher class than the worker ants do.
Princess Atta & Her Mother, the Queen are being shaded by worker ants.Picture 3 shows the class of Princess Atta & her mother, the Queen. It shows that they are in upper class because the other worker ants shade for them while they can just walk without even thinking about the hot sun. Princess Atta and her mother are waiting for grasshoppers to come while the other worker ants do their jobs.
Princess Atta and middle class ants are having a session discussing about what Flik does to the offering stone. Picture 4 shows that there are ants out of the upper class with middle class. They are ants who help the Queen and Princess Atta do their jobs like giving orders to worker ants, give opinions about what to do, etc. They really do help the Queen and Princess Atta about many things going through the movie.
Flik cutting rice stalk to pick kernels using his new invention. Flik does a job as a worker ant to help gather food for grasshoppers. It shows that he is in lower class because his job is to collect food like the other worker ants. It’s shown in picture 5 that Flik is trying out his new invention and cutting the rice stalk.
III. Base and Superstructure
Base and Superstructure in this movie take a really important role in the analysis because there will always be base and superstructure in every movie with Marxism. The writer believes that in this movie, the base and superstructure in this movie are the representation of human’s life. The writer assumes that the base of this movie is means of production, or in other word, how the ants work which shape the superstructure. Ants work collecting food and this makes the power occurs in the movie. In our real world, people who work for other people are considered to have a lower class than the people they work for. For the superstructure, it’s the power that maintains the base, which is means of production. Power in this movie is basically what someone needs to control a particular group, because with power people will have a false consciousness where they won’t be able to do anything, but to follow the orders of the one with power. In this movie, it’s showed that the grasshoppers with the advantage of having power to order the ants to do thing they want. The ants really have no courage to disobey the orders because they are afraid that the grasshoppers will do something to the them.
If there are classes, of course conflicts can occurs anytime and anywhere, even in the same class, there may also be conflicts. Those who are on the higher level may tend to treat people who are on lower level in a bad way because they want to show how they are more dominant and better than people with lower level. This class conflict happens because of different point of views and also opinions from each character, no matter how peaceful the situation or the place they live at. In this movie, class conflict happens mostly between the grasshoppers and the main characters. The grasshoppers who are considered to have stronger power and bigger bodies always do and say whatever they want to say to the ants, even to the queen and princess. Between the ants, conflict happens among the queen, princess, some middle class ants and worker ants. Because of different goals and needs, it can’t be helped that even the ants do have class conflict.
The first class conflict that the writer believes is when Flick, the main character (worker ant) invents things, but the inventions always cause troubles. He is using his invention to cut off rice and he throws the branch of the rice carelessly and it hits Princess Atta twice. He then gets lectured by the Princess and some middle class ants that he needs to collect foods just like the other worker ants do. He tries to explain that he only wants to help out, so that they can collect foods faster, but he is forced to go and work before he can explain it.
Picture 6 (00:05:53) “Listen! The princess doesn't have time for this! You wanna help fill this thing? Get rid of that machine, get back in line and pick grain like everybody else!” a middle class ant to Flik.
It’s seen in picture 6 that Flik is being lectured by middle class ants and Princess Atta. He is previously cutting a rice stalk to help others collect food faster, but he carelessly throws the stalk recklessly and it hits Princess Atta twice. The middle class ants are very angry at him because he always causes troubles every time he wants to help. A middle ant even says to him to work properly like other worker ants.
The second class conflict occurs when the grasshoppers arrives, right after the first class conflict occurs. They find out that their foods are missing and they go down to the ant base. The leader, Hopper then asks where is the food to Princess Atta because Princess Atta says she’s taking over her mother’s position as the Queen. Hopper tells Atta that it’s her fault because she’s the one in charge, not the worker ants’ fault (even though it’s Flick who accidentally make all the foods drop to a river. Hopper tells the Queen to get all the foods collected and the amount has to be doubled, while the ants have no time to collect the food because raining season is coming really soon and they haven’t collected foods for themselves as well.
Picture 7 is when the second class conflict occurs. Hopper is angry because the food that should be served for him is not there. He goes down and he blames that it’s Princess Atta’s fault for not being able to be a good leader. He then tells the Queen to have the food doubled and he will be back when the last leave falls. Princess Atta seems to be confused and worried about it because the food and time left are not enough.
The third class conflict is when Flick brings his fellow bug friends (who are circus performers). He promises Princess Atta to bring a group of strong bugs to fight Hopper and his group, he leaves the island all by himself sacrificing his only life for the colony. When he asks the circus performers to help him out, he doesn’t tell that they will fight a group of grasshoppers. The circus performers just agree because they have no job to do because they are fired, so they think that Flick can give them a proper new job to do to earn money. When they arrive, they are welcomed with such a merry and loud shouts. Later then the circus performers are told that they are going to fight grasshoppers who have been enslaving the ants for years by Princess Atta. Knowing that they need to fight, they get upset because of Flick for not telling them from the first time. They ask Flick why and it’s all messed up because they don’t know how to do it while they are just circus performers. They finally come to a decision that they need to leave the island to look for another job that suits them more (because it doesn’t suit them at all). Flick implores the circus bugs to change their minds and help him out, but they still intend to leave. Leaving the island, they go flying and Flick jumps off to catch Slim’s feet. All other circus bugs try to make Flick get off from holding, but ends up landing near a bird’s nest.
Picture 8 shows the conflict which occurs after circus bugs arrives to the ant island and they find out that they need to fight grasshoppers. They first think that it’s going to be a drama or something like that, but Flik doesn’t really tell the details so they don’t know about the job. They get mad at Flik for not telling them, it’s like lying to them that they need to work as fighting, not circus bugs.
The last class conflict that occurs in the movie is when the colony finds out Flik is lying to them. When they are having fun, celebrating the bird, a patrolling ant sees something moving from the bush. He then blows a horn and all ants stand on their positions. A circus wagon comes in and the owner of the circus named P. T. asks whether the ants know his circus performers or not. Flik tries to hide it from the colony, but he can’t. The colony finds out that the bugs that they believe to be warriors are just circus performers. Everyone is so upset, Princess Atta orders Flik and the other to leave the colony. They are very upset for believing Flik and the circus bugs and they think they’ve been wasting time for not collecting any food for the grasshoppers.
Picture 9 is when class conflict occurs, when the colony finds out that the so-called bug warriors are actually circus bugs. The colony is so angry at Flik that he lies to everyone, especially Princess Atta who believes in Flik with all her heart. The Queen then tells everyone not to panic and pretend that nothing happens. She also orders Flik and the circus bugs to leave the island because she doesn’t want to see them anymore.
When classes are differed by the society, people from lower class may tend to try something out to make them to be on the same level as people from upper class are, this is called class struggle. When there is someone or some people who struggle doing something to raise one’s pride, class struggle occurs. In this movie, there are several class struggles that the writer believes are the obvious struggles in the movie. The class struggles in this movie are all about how to get freedom from grasshoppers who have been leading the ants by the noses, to get a new life to start over, to live a peaceful life on a small island.
The first class struggle is when Flick leaves the island to look for help. He starts by packing up his things and leaves in the morning, right after the mess which is caused by grasshoppers. He goes right to a way which brings him somewhere, ends up seeing a big valley and it’s too dangerous if he just jumps. He has no wing and all he can do is just taking a dandelion and uses it as a mechanism to float in the air. To help his colony to get the freedom, not to be ruled by grasshoppers, he does something which is according to the Queen and middle class ants is considered to be really dangerous. There are so many big bugs out there and anything can happen to him, even death can approach him at any time when he is outside from the island. This is really how Flick struggles to obtain an equal social class between the ants and grasshoppers (even though the main purpose is only to get help from other bugs).
Picture 9 is an example of class struggle which occurs in the movie, where Flik uses a dandelion to fly across the dry river. He is first told by two small ants that he is going to die for leaving the island, but it doesn’t make him to cancel the plan. He then just goes straight and uses a dandelion to fly. He does this to help his colony to fight the grasshoppers so that they can live a better and more peaceful lives.
The other class struggle is how the ants and the circus bugs prepare props to fight. After the circus bugs decide that they’ll stay on the island and help the ants like making a big bird to scare the grasshoppers, fighting the grasshoppers, and so on. Flik tries so hard to save the colony from grasshoppers, especially when he hears out that the Queen is going to be killed by Hopper. They try out the bird that they make to scare the grasshoppers off, even though they fail at the end because the bird gets burned because of P. T. (circus owner where the circus bugs work before). After the bird gets burned, it falls onto the land and Hopper is totally angry about that. He asks to the ants whose idea it is and Flik bravely says that it’s his idea to scare the grasshoppers out. He then gets hit by a grasshopper, falls onto the ground because he can’t do anything due to the power difference. Hopper says that the ants need to do what he orders to be done because it’s ants’ job, to serve grasshoppers. Hopper also says that ants are also low level creature, they are even lower than dirt. Flik then replies that Hopper is wrong, the ants are great creatures and they can do many great things that Hopper can’t see. They can collect a big amount of foods for both grasshoppers and themselves while grasshoppers can only take. Flik states that by doing that, it simply shows who are weaker, it’s the grasshoppers who can only take foods without even doing anything. Hopper then gets even more angry, he slaps Flik and then he steps on Flik’s head, followed by a last blow, Princess Atta stops Hopper. Princess Atta then tells Hopper that nature has certain orders, whenever there is an ant colony, the ants will pick food, then they will keep the food, and grasshoppers leave. This cause all the ants rise and fight, making the grasshoppers leave.
Picture 11 (00:50:36) Making an imitation of bird.
Picture 12 (01:20:22) “You see, Hopper, nature has a certain order. The ants pick the food, the ants keep the food, and the grasshoppers leave!” Princess Atta to Hopper.
Picture 11 and 12 are when they struggle to fight for their lives. In picture 11, everyone gathers and make an imitation of bird together, this is Flik’s plan to scare Hopper and his fellow grasshoppers so that they will leave the island. It is not a simple and easy thing to do because it takes everyone’s involvements. In picture 12, it’s seen that Princess Atta is telling Hopper to leave after Hopper hits and slaps Flik for several times and he is trying to squish Flik. This makes everyone to move and take their position, fighting the grasshoppers.
Symbols in this movie are seen and believed to help the writer analyze and make the analysis stronger. There are some symbols that shows how there are social classes created in the movie. The symbols are crowns which are used by the Queen and Princess Atta, the Queen, Princess Atta and Dot’s wings, working equipment & activity of the worker ants, working equipment used by middle class ants, and the bird.
Crowns used by the Queen and Princess Atta are just basically a symbol to show authority over the colony. They have the authority to control and give orders to the ants. The Queen’s crown has more value than Princess Atta’s since it’s used for the Queen only while Atta’s is just a simple crown for a princess. These crowns are only owned by the ants in the line of descent, so they are very special and give meaning to those who wear them. In other words, it shows the class that the Queen and Princess Atta are in, which is the highest of all of the ants, upper class.
The wings of the Queen, Princess Atta, and Dot may seem to be ordinary ants’ wings, but it does have meaning behind it. These wings have almost similar function as the crowns, they are only owned by ants who are in the line of descent only, so not every ant has wings. This also shows the class of those 3, which is upper class among all the ants.
Picture 13 and14 shows the crowns of the Queen and Princess. They are the symbols of upper class ants in the movie where the one who wear them are only Queen and Princess. For picture 15, we can see that Princess Atta has a pair of wings which are owned by the ants whose line of descent is in the Queen’s line. So not everyone has the wings, which show the class classification of the ants.
Working equipment and activity of the worker ants simply show that they are meant for lower class ants to do their jobs and it symbolizes the lower class. Working equipment such as the one Flik uses to cut the rice branch is the clue of the lower class and also the activity that worker ants do such as collecting foods, placing them on the altar and repairing damaged stuff. All of these things are done for everyone, which means worker ants work for all ants so they are in the lower class in the ant colony.
Picture 16 and 17 belongs to worker ants where worker ants do activity like picking up grains and cutting rice stalk to collect food. This is a simple symbol of upper class ants because their job is to serve the other ants and grasshoppers, which is collecting food and put them on the offering stone.
Working equipment and activity of the middle class ants symbolize the class of them. They are not special ants, but they do have special jobs to do which are different from the other worker ants. They may only count how many foods have been collected, do a meeting about something related to the colony, and so on.
Picture 18 and 19 are job and equipment of middle class ants. Their job is to count how many foods collected and help the Queen or Princess to do jobs or even give opinions about something. They are basically the Queen’s right hand which take care of things going on when the Queen has already enough on her plate.
The stone was firstly given to Dot by Flik when Dot says that she is not able to fly. The writer assumes that this stone is the symbol of courage and bravery which pushes Flik and Dot to help their colony because Flik becomes encouraged when Dot gives a stone to Flik. Dot finds it as a symbol of courage and bravery as well because Dot uses it to encourage Flik who has lost his hope.
Picture 20 (01:09:26) Dot giving a stone to Flik.
The bird which is made by the ants and the circus bugs is the symbol of fear. The fear belongs to the grasshoppers, according to Flik, Hopper is really afraid of birds because birds eat grasshoppers. That’s why they make an imitation of a bird to scare the grasshoppers. The writer believes this bird is what grasshoppers fear the most because birds eat grasshoppers. It’s seen that when Flik and the others used the bird to scare the grasshoppers, all of the grasshoppers are in panic. It suddenly becomes a mess and because of this, the Queen who is going to be killed gets safe.
Picture 21 (00:52:00) The bird which is made by the ants and circus bugs to scare grasshoppers.
This paper mainly talks about how different classes in a society may cause a lot of conflicts and how people with lower social status try to get their status to be the same as other people with higher social status. Marxism is used to analyze the movie to help the writer to find out the class classifications, social classes, class conflicts, and class struggles which happen in the movie. The writer also uses one intrinsic element which is symbolism to help the writer find the meaning behind how the classes are created. The writer believes that social status may lead people to what we call discrimination, like how grasshoppers treats the ants as if the ants are their servants. It is also cannot be denied that social classes are possible to avoid when there are many people from several social backgrounds living in the same place.
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