The Chosen Insects: an Incomplete Assessment of Identity Crises In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewens theory, the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood. (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for a stylistic affinity to wealth, finding delight in the unreal, and obsessed with cheap luxury items. (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.A Bugs Life is an animated Disney film that tells the story of how a colony of ants fight back against and overcome the domination and oppression of the bullying grasshoppers. When looking at the movie through the lens of Ewens theory about identity, several connections concerning identity are found between A Bugs Life and The Chosen People. Furthermore, by looking at identity issues in A Bugs Life under this new light, Ewens theory becomes incomplete. In the Chosen People, Ewen fails to explore the positive aspects of conformity, gender in relationship to identity or the correlations between tradition and identity.Under the microscope of Ewens theory, A Bugs Life changes from an everyday kid movie to a film riddled with identity issues. The first connection between A Bugs Life and The Chosen People occurs when Ewen is explaining the rise of industrialism i...
