Can you picture that?

I think maybe my favorite film is The Muppet Movie. It has everything: a brilliant sense of humor, celebrity cameos--everyone from Bob Hope to Mel Brooks to Orson Welles--memorable musical numbers, an uplifting moral, lovable characters, a truly evil villain (and I mean truly evil; he is no psychopath bent on world domination but introduces himself as "a businessman with a proposition," whose only dream is to exploit others to make his own fortune). It even has touches of post-modernism. Yes, post-modernism. The fourth wall gets broken all the time in the movie. The whole set-up is that it's a film within a film, and the story is the story of the making of itself (with even a nod to the idea that it is an allegorical telling of the actual real story of how the Muppets came to be). One of the celebrity cameos is an appearance by Big Bird, who declines to come along on the trip to Hollywood because he is "going to New York City to try to break into public television."

When I expressed an appreciation for this last feature of the film at Gooski's the other night, I was told that this is not enough to count as post-modern. Apparently, post-modernism must be in the service of some greater aesthetic purpose--merely breaking that fourth wall once in a while does not count. So, here is an argument that The Muppet Movie does count.

The most blatantly post-modern element of the film begins when Kermit and Fozzie meet Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Fozzie begins to tell the story of how they got there, but Kermit interrupts. "Fozzie, you can't tell them the whole story. You'll bore the audience." Instead, Kermit gives them a copy of the screenplay so they can catch up. Later in the film, when our protagonists are lost in the desert and all hope seems to be lost, the Electric Mayhem shows up to save the day. The explanation for this deus ex machina is that they had read the screenplay: "Exterior. Desert. Night." They knew right where to look.

This explanation is so absurd, it cannot even be said to strain our credulity. Yet immediately after it is offered, Janice asks, "Can you get behind it?" Just when all hope was lost, we, the audience, are asked to engage in a tremendous act of suspension of disbelief--or, in a more prosaic phrase, faith. Without such an act, the plot, and the Muppets' pursuit of their collective dream, simply cannot go forward.

The song that ends the film-within-a-film is explicitly addressed to the audience.

Life's like a movie;
write your own ending.
Keep believing, keep pretending.
We've done just what we set out to do,
thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you.

The uplifting moral of the film, at a first approximation, is the simple message that, if one believes in one's dreams and doesn't give up on them, anything is possible. But there is the added dimension that it is in sharing our dreams with others that they gain real worth. This is the message of the final showdown with Doc Hopper. But the film does not just instruct us about this fact of life. Instead, it invites us to participate in the Muppets' dream ourselves, and thanks us for helping them on their way. Not only do the post-modern touches serve a greater aesthetic end; the film could not be what it is without them. They are essential.