In Babe, pigs are shown in an altogether more favorable light. Orwell's cynical vision is archly rebuked in this artfully shot tale of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog. Here the charismatic swine remains true to his egalitarian principles, and over the course of the narrative, the farm animals achieve the communitarian democracy Orwell's beasts only dream of: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Here the transgression of traditional barnyard roles is successful and the political climate optimistic. Moreover, Babe moves away from the "four legs good, two legs bad" reductionism of Animal Farm, which, in its allegorical simplicity, cannot afford the nuanced treatment of quadruped-biped relations that Babe offers. On the whole, Babe provides a stunning revisionist take on barnyard politics, and may change the whole way we view pigs politically. As with all trenchant academic work, this conclusion invites further research: The pigsty is fertile ground indeed. Sadly, my scope is necessarily limited, and I must leave it to future scholars to dissect power relations in Charlotte's Web or examine the subversion of gender roles in Porky and Petunia. But let no scholar turn away from these questions in disdain, for when pigs speak, they speak volumes.