Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Movie review: ‘Okja’ and the power of free markets to save lives
Movie review: ‘Okja’ and the power of free markets to save lives
Apr 26, 2025 12:54 AM

Okja, the new filmfrom the director of Snowpiercer, was simultaneously released online and in the theater to coincidewith the extended Fourth of July holiday. ButOkja, which seeks to portray capitalism in a negative light, deserves to be remembered for its portrayal of how free markets save lives.

Okja is the story of a simple South Korean orphan named Mija (An Seo Hyun) whose only friend is the film’s titular character, a genetically modified “super pig” about to be slaughtered. Okja (pronounced “OAK-juh”) is a gentle-hearted CGI that looks like a cross between a rhino and a manatee. The Mirando Corporation launched a 10-year-long contest for farmers to raise these massive animals, specially bred to feed starving people while leaving “a minimal footprint on the environment.”

As the film opens the corporation’s spokesman, a whiny TV scientist reminiscent of Bill Nye (Jake Gyllenhaal), has proclaimed Okja the winner. Soon, it dawns on 14-year-old Mija what awaits her beloved pet – and she springs into motion to save the gargantuan gilt’s life.

Produced for Netflix, Okja began a limited theatrical release on Wednesday peted for the Palm d’Or at Cannes, stirring Oscar speculation. Bong Joon Ho, the director of Snowpiercer, puts his genre-blending style on display here, as well. But its moments of edy and adventure outshine the dull thud of leaden propaganda that otherwise pervades his script.

Still, Okja reaches an important, market-affirming truth in spite of itself.

Warning: This section contains spoilers.

The film literally begins with a ritual denunciation of capitalism, as Mirando CEO Lucy (Tilda Swinton) brands pany’s founder – her grandfather – “a terrible man” mitted “atrocities.” Motioning toward Mirando headquarters, she says, “These walls are stained with the blood of fine working men.” We later learn that her family produced napalm, and, when Lucy’s crazed twin Nancy was CEO, she “dumped so much toxic waste into” a lake “that it exploded.”

The dialogue features all the subtlety of a Daily Worker op-ed.

Meanwhile, Mija playfully romps with Okja, who saves her life. When Mija learns that her grandfather was unable to purchase Okja – instead buying her a golden calf, err, pig – she sets out to return the favor.

Along the way, she meets the friendly hijackers of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a real-life “direct action” organization that Bong portrays as unfailingly sympathetic. “We inflict economic damage on those who profit from [animals’] misery,” says the onscreen leader, Jay (Paul Dano). Although he paraphrases ALF’s actual “40-year credo” never to hurt any creature, human or animal, Jay administers a ruthless beating to a fellow ALF member mitsterrorism without a hint of irony.

Okja is cruelly tortured – and blinded – by her capitalist oppressors. When ALF liberates Okja, with the help of Mija’s love, her eyes are opened.

The group saves Okja but asks Mija’s permission to send her back to pany’s mass slaughter facility, in order to secretly record its conditions. The translator betrays Mija (who does not speak English), and her pursuit continues.

A heartlight vs. “the heart of capitalism”

The simple child’s quest to save a lovable creature from a faceless system is reminiscent of E.T., albeit replacing government bureaucrats with corporate executives … who happen to be the animal’s rightful owners.

But Okja lacks the (glowing) heart of E.T., which emphasized the loving relationship between the two protagonists. Bong hasanother purpose: to demonize corporations.

The film’s climax shifts to Manhattan because it is, in Bong’s words, “the heart of capitalism.” There it offers a graphic tour of Mirando’s mass slaughterhouse, where Bong (who co-wrote the film) lingers over scenes of torture, killing, and a river of blood flowing through the facility. Bongsaid these graphic images were “absolutely necessary” to “make the audience feel fortable. It is witnessing your family being dragged into a slaughterhouse.”

“This is the state of capitalism today, and this is what I wanted to convey,” Bong told the BBC.

Suchcold-hearted capitalist mentality is on display as Nancy, who has ruthlessly returned to Mirando, tells Mija her pet’s death “is business.”

But the film’s conclusionupends this simplistic portrayal. Mija uses the golden pig to purchase Okja’s freedom. At that moment, Nancy’s demeanor pletely, instructing security to make sure “our customer and her purchase get home safely.”

Despite Bong’s anti-capitalist screed, the free market saves the day.

As of this writing, Okja holds an 84 percent rating from Rotten Tomatoes. It has rare moments edic success, such as its surreal use of “Annie’s Song,” and inspiring cinematography. (The scene of Mija walking against the colorless crowds is a must-see.) But it fails to connect with its viewers, because barepropaganda lacks human depth and emotion. Okja should be remembered, if at all, for three things:

Its positive portrayal of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

Analysts say that ALF and its allied Earth Liberation Force (ELF) have engaged in an increasingly violent pattern of crime. The FBI testified before the Senate in 2004 “that the ALF/ELF and related groups mitted more than 1,100 criminal acts in the United States since 1976, resulting in damages conservatively estimated at approximately $110 million.” The FBI added that ALF extremism poses “a serious domestic terrorist threat.” While ALF has generally avoided violence, it has embarked on an escalating campaign of arson and the use of IEDs, according to STRATFOR. One eco-arsonist carried in his backpack a copy of the book The Declaration of War: Killing People to Save the Animals and the Environment, published by ALF.

Its misleading portrayal of genetically modified food (GMOs) as dangerous.

Okja consistently presents GMOs as an offense against nature; one ALF member insists any sane person would be “disgusted at eating mutant, GM foods.” Bong told the BBC he intended this as a propaganda point: “There are people who say the danger of GM foods is being overly exaggerated,” he said, “but nobody is able to prove their safety, either.” However, the European Union looked at a decade of relevant data beforeconcludingthat “GMOs are not per se more risky than, e.g., conventional plant breeding technologies.” In April, Cuba announced it would turn to GMOs to save its floundering socialist economy. Needlessly denying hungry people access to safe food is an unusual moral message. The filmalso raises the question why it is moral to create GMOs panionship but not nourishment or the survival of the human race.

Its conclusion that the free market liberates man and beast alike.

Ultimately, what saves Okja (the animal, not the film) is free market capitalism. Mija makes a consumer choice that she values her pet more than a solid gold statue. Mirando seeks to make a profit by catering to human needs. The conclusion of this film is the flip-side of Adam Smith’s famous dictum that prosperityis not caused by the entrepreneur’s benevolence; much less is a corporation primarily motivated by sadism. It bears remembering that the free market has long been involved in conservation – including the preservation of species facing extinction – from the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association in Pennsylvania, to the Sea Lion Caves of Oregon, to the work of Ducks Unlimited in preserving wetlands through private ownership.

Okjaaccurately teachesthat each individual affects the world by choosing which products to purchase. Every dollar is a vote for or against a good or service. Only when denied this choice can a system impose barbarism on an unwilling society.

Fans of the free market would do well to vote with their dollars and watch something else besides Okja this summer.

trailer screenshot.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Let’s Change Hearts and Minds (and Laws, Too)
Few clichés are so widespread within the evangelical subculture, says Matthew Lee Anderson, as the notion that our witness must be one of “changing hearts and minds.” In careful hands, the idea is at best ambiguous. At worst it reinforces the sort of interior-oriented individualism that allows for and perpetuates a blissful naivete about how institutions and structures shape our dispositions and thoughts. In less than careful hands, the phrase drives a wedge between law and culture by attempting to...
Obamacare’s Religious Rubes
The White House has a plan to mobilize prayer vigils in front of the Supreme Court in defense of Obamacare. It was reported that the administration met with leaders at non-profit organizations and religious officials who support the new health care law. The court takes up the constitutional test of the health care mandate in a couple of weeks. The mandate has now been challenged in 26 states. Cue the same stale big government religious prophets who confuse statism and...
How to Steal a Bike in New York City
Edmund Burke didn’t really say it, but it still rings true: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. In a test of this maxim, filmmaker Casey Neistat tries to steal his own bike in several locations around New York City and finds that most people do nothing about it—even when it’s done right in front of a police station. I recently spent a couple of days conducting a bike theft experiment, which...
Italy’s Tax Man Takes Aim at the Vatican
Kishore Jayabalan, the Acton Institute’s Rome office director, was interviewed by the Zenit news agency in an article titled, “Is Taxing the Church a Real Solution for Italy?” In the article, Jayabalan discusses the history of the Italian state and its imposition of property taxes on the Roman Catholic Church’s land holdings, residences and non-profit businesses. Sometimes in the past, particularly under Napoleonic rule and before the Lateran Pacts, the institution of property tax was often a subject of state...
Reagan, Whittaker Chambers, and the Threat to Freedom
Over at the Liberty Law Blog, there is an excellent post titled “Ronald Reagan, Whittaker Chambers, and the Dialogue of Liberty” by Alan Snyder. Snyder delves into the influence Chambers had on Reagan and how their worldviews differed as well. Many conservatives and scholars felt Chambers’ prediction that the West was on the losing side of history in the battle against Marxism collapsed after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union. For many, the ideas of Chambers...
Lord Acton and the Power of the Historian
Looking through my back stacks of periodicals the other day I ran across a review in Books & Culture by David Bebbington, “Macaulay in the Dock,” of a recent biography of Thomas Babington Macaulay. The essay takes its point of departure in Lord Acton’s characterization of Macaulay as “one of the greatest of all writers and masters, although I think him utterly base, contemptible and odious.” As Bebbington writes, “Acton, a towering intellectual of the later 19th century, was at...
Is Work a Curse?
Is work a curse, a result of mankind’s fall from grace? Not according to the Book of Genesis. As Hugh Whelchel, Executive Director of the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, explains, what Adam was called to do in the garden is what we are still called to do in our work today: Humanity was created by God to cultivate and keep God’s creation, which included developing it and protecting it. You see, we were created to be stewards of...
Constitutional Cases and the Four Cardinal Virtues
Should virtue be a consideration in judicial decisionmaking? Indiana Law Professor R. George Wright makes an intriguing argument for why the four cardinal virtues could be useful in interpreting constitutional cases: Judges typically decide constitutional cases by referring to one or more legal precedents, rules, tests, principles, doctrines, or policies. This Article mends supplementing this standard approach with fully legitimate and appropriate attention to what many cultures have long recognized as the four basic cardinal virtues of practical wisdom or...
How to Love Liberty More Than a Libertarian Economist
I have a deep and abiding love for liberty—which is why I find myself so often in disagreement with libertarians. Libertarians love liberty too, of course, but they tend to love liberty a bit differently. I love liberty in an earthy, elemental way. I love liberty because I need it—like I need air and food—for human flourishing. In contrast, the libertarians I’ve encountered tend to love liberty primarily as an abstraction. Indeed, the most ideologically consistent libertarians I know seem...
Integral Human Development
The Journal of Markets & Morality is planning a theme issue for the Spring of 2013: “Integral Human Development,” i.e. the synthesis of human freedom and responsibility necessary for the material and spiritual enrichment of human life. According to Pope Benedict XVI, Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development over and above human responsibility. (Caritas in Veritate 17) There is a delicate balance between the material and the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved