The Curious Conservatism of Hey Arnold! The Movie

I was never a huge Hey Arnold! fan growing up, as its influence and popularity was waning as I was coming into my formative years. It occasionally came on as reruns, and I was aware of its existence, but Nickelodeon was already fully transitioning into the Spongebob-dominant era of the early 2000s when I was beginning to collect a series of childhood stories to adore and learn from. However, with the ubiquity of streaming services allowing me to peruse older media and reflect on its nostalgic value, I’ve come to adore the story of a well-intentioned football-headed kid living in the heart of the city with a wacky ensemble of friends and family. There are surprisingly many great life lessons that go above and beyond your average children’s show fare, and the show blends the characters and their stories into the distinctly urban setting, setting it apart from many typical suburban adventures that were more recognizable to myself and many of my close friends growing up. (I do want to talk about the urbanism in Hey Arnold! in the future once I can formulate my thoughts more succinctly).

Today, I’m going to focus on the unique lessons derived from the first movie in the series, which promotes a message style not often found in typical stories in the Hollywood media complex. Originally planned as a TV special titled “Arnold Saves the Neighborhood,” Hey Arnold! The Movie creates a story that pits a small underdog neighborhood against a corporate giant, which you may be aware is a common trope in movies and TV. But by approaching the topic they way the movie did, it promotes a somewhat unconventionally conservative message that continues to stick in my mind, to the point that I have to just put it into words somewhere.

The movie opens up on the neighborhood in its full liveliness on a summer’s day (I assume only because of the kids running through hoses and fountains in their swim trunks and the presence of a local ice cream truck.) Suddenly, the tone shifts as a large construction crew is seen beginning to demolish dilapidated buildings. It is revealed that a large corporation called Future Tech Industries (abbreviated here on out as FTI) has offered a plan approved by the mayor to redevelop a 6 square-block neighborhood into a new mega shopping complex – the very neighborhood where Arnold and his friends all live. While the government seems complicit in this plan – the city council had made a recommendation against it, but the mayor went around them and approved the plan regardless – the real villain of this story is the corporation, led by a man named Scheck and his cronies.

I know your first protest will be “But the villain is a rich corporation, and conservatives like corporations! They’re just gentrifying a predominantly white working-class neighborhood for some mall! This is obviously a progressive tale/socialist propaganda!” And, well, you would have a fair point. The Republican Party, for better or worse, is the currently political force of the broader conservative movement as defined in America, and it has historically (since its inception prior to the Civil War) been closely aligned with the interests of businesses. Politics have fluctuated a lot in the ~150 years since, with some old issues falling to the wayside while newer issues arise in a changing world. But large portions of the GOP continue to align with the interests of businesses small and (predominantly) large alike. There have been a few instances of disruption, such as Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust “progressive” Bull-Moose movement or the current populism associated with Donald Trump. Indeed, it’s too early to say whether the rise of figures like Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, and Blake Masters can be defined as a “realignment” away from the pro-business effects of the GOP, or if this will just be a faction in the coalition that aligns with others against a common opposition, but that’s neither here nor there with today’s post.

No, when I’m discussing conservatism at large, I mean more in the traditional social sense as “measured resistance to change and the new.” In today’s culture war, there is a strong line between those who consider themselves “conservative” and those who are “progressive” and the economic fault lines don’t match up exactly 1-to-1; ask any conservative what they think of “Big Tech Companies” or any progressive how they feel about where companies like Starbucks and Nike stand on social issues to see this play out. Indeed, conservatism as understood more broadly is in favor of keeping things about society the same, preserving traditions and social institutions like the nuclear family, marriage, and churches. Because of the remnants of political fusionism (apologies in advance for linking to Vox), conservatives more focused on these social issues allied with free-market libertarians under the GOP banner to fight against a common enemy: the Left, both in the American Democrats and in the specter of global Communism during the height of the Cold War. But I don’t believe it’s correct to paint all conservatives with one broad brush (or all progressives/leftists, mind you), especially as social conservatives are increasingly opposed to what they call the “wokeness” of corporations and the devastation of family and community values in pursuit of economic growth and consumerism.

So, back to the cartoon movie, the evil CEO speaks on TV about the effects of his redevelopment plan, which would devastate families and a local community in pursuit of economic growth and consumerism (*WINK*). He insists “that change is good. This plan represents the end of urban decay, the end of your broken-down shops and apartment buildings, the end of antiquated and dilapidated storefronts. It’s time for a new world. Out with the old, in with the new.” In response to this, our hero Arnold comments, “What’s wrong with old things? Some old things are great.”

As we see the events unfold, the conflict between pursuing the new vs. preserving the old, or between progressivism vs. conservatism becomes more apparent. To allude to G.K. Chesterton, the large business seems to approach the neighborhood like a random fence post in a field. Thinking it’s useless and standing in the way of progress, they seek to remove it before understanding the importance of why it is there. Arnold’s neighborhood is indeed blighted, rundown, and unsightly in a few places. And in the early 2000s, who wouldn’t want a brand-new shopping mall? But this ignores the reality, which is that this neighborhood is a real place where real people live, where real children are being raised and playing street ball with friends, where real people own businesses and are making a living. In this perspective, change isn’t automatically always good, while preserving the livelihoods of communities and families is more important than building a fancy new shopping center.

Arnold, always the optimist looking on the bright side “because somebody has to,” leads the neighborhood in a public effort to resist the redevelopment plan, including flyers, a petition, and a large neighborhood block party in protest. Unfortunately, Scheck’s cronies intercept the permit before it reaches the city government, then sic the police on the “illegal” protest. Scheck even installs a giant monitor screen echoing his propaganda akin to Orwell’s Big Brother: “Change is good. It’s time to put the past behind Out with the old, in with the new. I’ve seen the future, and it’s Future Tech Industries.”

Ultimately, Arnold and his friends are able to find proof that the neighborhood is a historical landmark, owing to a “Tomato Incident” similar to the Boston Tea Party that took place during the Revolutionary War. While Scheck’s corporation has stolen and ultimately destroyed the only historic document that proves this, Arnold manages to get video proof of the document’s existence through a zany series of antics that can be only described as “cartoonish.” Ultimately, Scheck is arrested and the neighborhood is saved from the ongoing assault of Progressivism.

I won’t say the movie is perfect, and it owes many faults to the last-minute decision by Nickelodeon’s executives to move it to theaters instead of television part of the way through its development. And the message it spreads isn’t exclusively or even blatantly conservative in effect. Like mentioned above, you may see the “underdog vs. corporate giant” and think that the message is against conservatism, however you define it. And certainly, I’ll be the first to point out that conservatism and urban communities have historically been more opposed than aligned, though there are efforts by the likes of Strong Towns author Charles Marohn and the “New Urbanists” at The American Conservative to dispel the idea that urban prosperity is or should only be a concern for the left. But I think the core message, that of resisting change for the sake of change, of valuing communities instead of commodities, and of preserving our history and our bonds in the wake of an ever-“progressive” world, is one that ought to strike more to the hearts of conservatives. Conservatives should value families, communities, the small business owner, the local neighborhood, and the history of our cities as things worth preserving, even if it means standing up to giant corporate interests and, yes, donors. Conservatives should recognize the value in leaving some things they way they are and preserving what is good, because “somebody has to.”