Is ‘Small Soldiers’ Antifa?
Revisiting things from your childhood can be an interesting experience, especially if that childhood took place in the anarchic 1990’s. Take Small Soldiers for an example. It’s a movie I watched probably 100 times as a kid, and I was feeling nostalgic recently and decided to check it out as a now 27 year old. Before I talk about how it may have radicalized a generation of kids to the far left, I’d like to just discuss the movie itself for a bit. I don’t know how well you remember it, but it is absolutely WILD. Basically a military weapons conglomerate decides to get into selling toys (?) and an employee then puts weapons-grade microchips into action figures (??) and they all become autonomous with the extremely racist, soldier-type Commando Elite programmed to hunt down the monster-type Gorgonites simply because they aren’t human (?????????). What ensues is an extremely violent kid’s movie with high levels of toy on toy murder involving garbage disposals, flaming tennis balls, razor blade guns, and drone strikes.
To prove this movie and the 90’s as a whole were truly nuts, it’s important to point out that this wasn’t some direct to video VHS tape hiding at the back of your local Blockbuster. This movie has Kirsten Dunst right before she hits the true peak of her powers, and the main villain Chip Hazard is voiced by Tommy Lee Jones. That’s right, they paid Tommy Lee Jones to say things like:
“If it lacerates or detonates, I want it mobile and I want it lethile.”
“You’ve got a lot of guts. Let’s see what they look like.”
“I love the smell of polyurethane in the morning.”
“Nick Nitro’s battery has run out, but his memory lives on.”
“It’s a small world after all.”
“We have met the enemy, and he is you.”
Tommy Lee agreed to all of that! Truly a flex.
This movie also has a scene in which the Commando Elite need to incapacitate the parents so they are free to search the house for the Gorgonites. To do this the autonomous action figures literally raid the medicine cabinet and find random pills to slingshot into the unsuspecting adults’ cocktails in what they call “Operation Sandman.” They also refer to it as “chemical warfare.” The parents are then passed out on the couch for a good portion of the rest of the movie. It’s insane.
I mention the roofie scene not only to explain the absurdity of the movie, but also to set up what might be the most divisive take I’ve ever written. And by divisive I mean it will divide literally everyone away from me because I’m the only one who will agree with my own take here. Small Soldiers is similar to but also better and more fun in every way than Home Alone. That’s right, there’s no parents (mostly), and the kids/toys are using household items to set traps and eliminate their enemies. The thing with Small Soldiers is there are actual stakes. People bleed! Toys are murdered! Basically the entire block gets destroyed! It’s much more thrilling to see these types of scenarios play out when there is actual danger involved for the characters.
I’m pretty sure that it is actually impossible to die in the Home Alone universe. If you could than both of the burglars going after Kevin would’ve died multiple times over. He electrocutes one of them and also just straight up chucks bricks off the roof at their heads… Since obviously no one could die, Kevin was never in any real danger and clearly just enjoyed torturing those men. Kevin needs to be institutionalized.
Just so everyone knows there is no personal bias leaking in here I would like to mention that the Home Alone soundtrack was composed by John Williams, one of my favorite humans on the entire planet, and Small Soldiers still has the better music by about 5 billion miles. With songs from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Pat Benatar, Queen Latifah, The Pretenders, Cheap Trick, Queen, and most importantly “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, it is unfuckwithable.
Small Soldiers is better than Home Alone, it’s settled. Now let’s talk about something a little less divisive: Politics.
I went into my re-watch of this movie trying to find a joke to make about how it turned a generation of kids into Antifa Socialists, but I was actually surprised at how much of an anti-war message the film truly had. The bad guys are very pro-murder soldiers who hate their enemies just because they are different. The good guys are non-violent pacifists who do their best to choose hiding over fighting whenever they can. But it’s not just the toys that put forth this message. The reason the Commando Elite can even be racist in the first place is because they are programmed to do so by GloboTech Industries, a weapons company branching out into every branch of commerce possible, including toys. It’d be like if Raytheon suddenly had a theme park and a streaming service. Honestly, they might already have a streaming service, I don’t know. For my sanity I won’t be doing any research on the subject. Clearly the messaging of the movie is that GloboTech Industries is evil, and while it might not be such a radical position for a movie to take, I like to think watching it 100 times as a child played a small part in why I’m not pro war-profiteer today. You never know.
Plus, the obviously terrible neighbor in the movie has the line “I think World War II is my favorite war.” Which is both hilarious and also gross.
There’s even some subtle messaging in the backgrounds of scenes, for instance take a look at this poster I noticed in Kirsten Dunst’s character’s room:
Basically, Small Soldiers is indeed Antifa.
Though, it wasn’t always easy to pin down the politics or message of this movie overall. At the very end the GloboTech CEO flies in and just prints out a big ass check for anyone who complains about their emotional distress or the damage their property took as a result of Toy War I. Everyone happily takes the money and go on their merry way. In the end, capitalism always wins. Maybe that’s the message of the movie, and maybe that’s what I really took away as a kid, because boy am I a fan of large checks.
So Small Soldiers isn’t the most progressive movie of all time. But it tried, and that’s more than can be said for Home Alone.
