In a non-Marxist reading, he might best be described as a very bad dude. McGregor is a full-on sociopath who, in a Marxist reading, would be described as being engaged in the suppression of the disenfranchised. There’s a reason Peter’s mom warns him early on that he and his sisters better not steal food from McGregor’s garden. The antagonists are engaged in a battle of wits with life itself at stake. The titular bunny doesn’t just have a fraught relationship with Mr. Peter Rabbit, the book, has a sort of zany nihilism that people seem to forget on account of the nice illustrations and the general cultural amnesia on plot points. If Peter is the main character of the story, it would be fair to say that death, perpetually peaking out from behind thorny bushes, gets second billing. And it only gets more Mad Max-ian from there. Peter’s dad, it is clear on page one, has been eaten in a pie. Beatrix Potter had a charming name and could do wonders with watercolors, but she didn’t exactly have a rosy worldview. Like many classic kid’s books, Peter Rabbit is dark, cruel, and full of ominous portent. And, yes, the film may be a ham-fisted attempt to update a beloved classic, but anyone who claims the movie somehow sullies the saccharine purity of Beatrix Potter’s book clearly hasn’t read it. The new live-action Peter Rabbit movie, which hit American theaters last week, has received mixed reviews from both critics and the sorts of parents who take to Twitter as the credits roll.
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