Antz Government

The movie Antz portrays the life and adventures of a worker ant named Z. The ant colony that he lives in is led by a Queen, but General Mandible, the Queen's military leader, plans to destroy the current monarchy and replace it with a dictatorship where he would be the new leader. On the other hand, Z learns of the plans that General Mandible has to eliminate the Queen, and he tries to stop Mandible while he is teaching others the values of thinking for oneself. The three types of major government portrayed in the movie are autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy.

In the movie, an autocratic government is portrayed. Z lives in a colony where there is a monarch in charge of everyone; it is ruled by one person. Although the queen does not have much power, she also shares power with the General, who sets the rules in the colony. The queen is more of a figurehead, rather than having power to do what she wants. There is also a totalitarian dictatorship present because the ruler and General decide whether the newborn ants become a worker, soldier, or government official, so the newborns do not a choice to do what they want to do. The General also controls all the forms of communication, not letting anyone leave the colony, and he gives speeches on how their colony is the greatest, and how the ants living there are great as well; he gives propaganda to have the ants love him and not oppose him. When Z met Princess Bala one night in the bar, he had to see her again, but little did he know that he would end up kidnapping her, and that he would try to find Insectopia. When the Princess is kidnapped, it stops General Mandible's plans to marry her and take over the colony, so to go through with his plan, he decides to get Z's friend, Weaver, to try and convince him where he is, and when he does not say anything, the military starts beating him to death because they are being opposed. Also, because Z ran away from the colony, the General ordered the search party to kill him.

An oligarchy government is also shown in the movie. The colony in which the ants live in is ruled by a small group of people that think they know what is best for the ants, which would be the Queen and the General and his army; it has a legislature that is ruled by one political party. The General sent his army to go to war with the termite kingdom, but only because he had plans to kill most of his army off, so he can start his own colony of "powerful ants," without the weaker link. An aristocracy is also covered because the colony is ruled by a small group of wealthy people. The Queen and General Mandible are the highest on the hierarchy of the ant colony, therefore, the wealthiest. Communist totalitarianism is also present because the ant colony is ruled by one party that uses military to enforce its rule. A type of military junta is present because the colony is ruled by a group and it only has one army, not several groups with a separate army.