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HuffPost published a lengthy examination of the merits of this year’s hit remake of “Beauty and the Beast” and how it was tied to Trump.

“So what does all this have to do with Donald Trump? Let’s see. The danger of raw, hyper-masculine force that curses everything around it. The transformational power of human empathy. Kindness as an antidote to rage. The transfiguration of a narcissistic monster into a human being. The saving grace of love and compassion that turns a cursed landscape into a beautiful habitat and returns everyone to their humanity. Trump should be required to see this movie repeatedly until he gets it,” said the piece.

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Over at Vox, Allisa Wilkinson did everything possible to find Trump signifiers in another 2017 hit movie aimed at young adults, “The Lego Batman Movie.”

“It’s Batman against the world. He throws fits when he’s told to get some rest. He courts admiration, then pushes away his admirers. He keeps himself insulated from others, even while craving their praise. And while President Trump has plenty of enemies, it’s no secret that his personal relationships are fraught, or predicated on tenuous business dealings,” Wilkinson wrote.

Then the writer closed her lengthy treatise with the best kind of explainer: She emphasized her own brilliance. “And so, sometimes, a well-told story feels relevant just because a well-told story is always relevant. Spotting its relevance and advice to current events isn’t a political statement. It’s just wisdom.”

Related: The Four Best World War II Movies

Politicizing movies has been a tendency of many film critics and actors today, as they strain to sound relevant. When “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” debuted last December, there was a seeming rush to be the first to draw comparisons. At Slate, this declaration was made: “It is a perfect movie, in its own way, to take us through the transition from the era of Barack Obama to the era of Donald Trump.”

No less imbalanced was Variety, which said, “‘Rogue One’ Is the Most Politically Relevant Movie of the Year.” The rationale was that Trump, who had yet to be inaugurated at that point, would be served a strong message by the racially balanced cast of the film, as would his followers.

Related: Politically Correct Action Flicks Finally Explained

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Most, if not all, of these films had been well along in their production cycles even years before Trump was a political figure. This is especially the case with “Rogue,” which was released just weeks after his election.

That’s why ascribing contemporary political significance to that release, as with most of the other examples, is more than a stretch of credulity. The effort it takes to shoehorn an anti-Trump message into these releases says little about the films — but speaks volumes about those striving to use them as platforms for their own political agendas.[lz_pagination]