Antz Conflict Theory Analysis
LaVonne Buckle
June 16, 2016
Assignment 2
Conflict Theory and Social Stratification in Antz
The DreamWorks Animated movie Antz is full of many inferences to all the Big Three Sociological Theories. Having never seen the movie, I cannot attest to which it most closely aligns with, but from watching the first fifteen minutes for this assignment, I definitely see Conflict Theory at work in the structure of the colony and the interactions of the characters.
The film opens with the character Z lying on a psychiatrists couch lamenting his lot in life. He is a worker ant, a role he was given or ascribed at birth. Our textbook tells us in chapter four, that ascribed statuses are “those you do not select” (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 86.). There is …show more content…
188). In a closed society like that depicted in the ant colony, the level of ones strata is ascribed at birth, just as we see in the clip. Beyond this ascribed status, closed systems also do not allow people to change levels or even to associate with people of different levels. The scene where Princess Bala sneaks and goes to the bar exemplifies this closed system. Her friends are mortified at going and when Z asks when he can see her again, she tells him never because she knows they are of different social strata and are forbidden to interact with one another. As we discussed in class, she would be part of the bourgeois and he would be part of the …show more content…
Karl Marks, the father of conflict theory, believed this hopelessness and alienation resulted from people’s sense of powerlessness from the stratification system (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 200). The movie reiterates this helplessness when Z repeated claims he feels “insignificant … the whole system makes me feel insignificant.” It is even more forcefully expressed when he exclaims he is just “a piece of construction
June 16, 2016
Assignment 2
Conflict Theory and Social Stratification in Antz
The DreamWorks Animated movie Antz is full of many inferences to all the Big Three Sociological Theories. Having never seen the movie, I cannot attest to which it most closely aligns with, but from watching the first fifteen minutes for this assignment, I definitely see Conflict Theory at work in the structure of the colony and the interactions of the characters.
The film opens with the character Z lying on a psychiatrists couch lamenting his lot in life. He is a worker ant, a role he was given or ascribed at birth. Our textbook tells us in chapter four, that ascribed statuses are “those you do not select” (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 86.). There is …show more content…
188). In a closed society like that depicted in the ant colony, the level of ones strata is ascribed at birth, just as we see in the clip. Beyond this ascribed status, closed systems also do not allow people to change levels or even to associate with people of different levels. The scene where Princess Bala sneaks and goes to the bar exemplifies this closed system. Her friends are mortified at going and when Z asks when he can see her again, she tells him never because she knows they are of different social strata and are forbidden to interact with one another. As we discussed in class, she would be part of the bourgeois and he would be part of the …show more content…
Karl Marks, the father of conflict theory, believed this hopelessness and alienation resulted from people’s sense of powerlessness from the stratification system (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 200). The movie reiterates this helplessness when Z repeated claims he feels “insignificant … the whole system makes me feel insignificant.” It is even more forcefully expressed when he exclaims he is just “a piece of construction