We’ve detailed how funding from the oil and gas industry appears to be fueling favorable coverage of the industry at the Media Research Center.
That fossil-fueled bias pops up once again in a Nov. 29 MRC Business & Media Institute article by Iris Somberg, in which she complains that the villain in the new Muppets movie is an oilman:
Muppet fans around the world were excited to see their childhood friends reunite; only to find out it was to save their studio from a rich oil executive. Liberal Hollywood loves an evil oil company – better yet, make it a successful business man that runs an oil company. The movie industry has repeatedly bashed businessmen and gone after gas and oil.
Tex Richman, a wealthy man that plans to demolish the Muppet studio after the National Geological Survey finds oil directly beneath it, has his plans foiled by three Muppet fans. They “discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds,” as described by “The Muppets” website.
Throughout the movie, Richman cackles maniacally and shows just how heartless he really is by denying Kermit’s personal plea to give back the studio. He even tells the Muppets its “time to give up your dream,” which is one of the worst things anyone can say to a Muppet (or a Hollywood liberal).
Yes, it’s a Muppet movie – farcical and silly. But how sadly predictable that the villain is the perennial bogeyman of liberal environmentalists, and how sadly telling that the writers politicized a children’s movie. Again.
Somberg doesn’t mention her employer’s not-insignificant funding from oil interests.