The Littles, who had tails, and mouse-like ears and teeth, unlike the Borrowers
Posted on 02/22/2012 10:33:54 AM PST by max americana
In the Dr. Seuss book, the Lorax speaks for trees, "for the trees have no tongues."
Lou Dobbs, on the other hand, most definitely has a tongue and he's not afraid to wield it against the beloved children's character.
On a segment of Dobbs’ Fox Business Network show Tuesday night that was flagged by the advocacy group Media Matters, the cantankerous conservative pundit bashed two new animated movies as an example how Hollywood "once again is trying to indoctrinate our children.”
Dobbs lambasted Disney's "The Secret World of Arrietty," a Japanese film that opened last Friday, for its story about a 4-inch-tall family of "borrowers" who take items from humans without paying for them. Universal's "The Lorax," opening March 2, "is about a woodland creature who speaks for the trees and fights rampant industrialism," Dobbs said, emphasizing the last two words.
"Where have we heard this before?" asked Dobbs. "Occupy Wall Street forever tried to put the makers against the takers and President Obama repeating that everyone should pay their fair share in dozens of speeches since his State of the Union address last month.
"The President's liberal friends in Hollywood targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children."
Turning to his three guests, Dobbs found sympathy for his arguments.
"What we're doing is creating Occu-toddlers," right-wing talk-show host Matt Patrick said. "Here's what I would recommend. If you want to go see the movie and we all know what the agenda is, buy huge tubs of popcorn, ram it in your face, they're all made of paper, you crinkle it all up, throw it on the floor, you walk out. You spend all kinds of money on stuff and you leave it on the floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Of course they do because frankly they are idiotic statements to make.
Anyone read the lorax or the borrowers knows what the story is about, and your political bent will decide how you interpret it, whether it be a film or a book.
You can take “The Lorax” as an anti-capitalist, enviro-worshiping book of indoctrination, or you can take it as a cute cautionary tail about the dangers of pollution and unfettered greed. The story is the same either way, but your political bent will decide which it is to you.
We’ll see the one based on The Borrowers at least. I generally haven’t liked movies based on Dr. Seuss books as they don’t translate well.
Studio Ghibli films are usually very respectful of families, and I’ve yet to see a bad one.
An astute observation.
Lord of the Rings?
“When there’s a movie based on a book about to come out the book gets a new pressing and a big push. It’s part of why they sell the movie rights of books.”
I’m quite aware of the capitalism aspect of this.
Curious as to why the movie now, why the book now?
Perhaps the answer is here;
http://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329992026&sr=1-1
I hear it has great reviews;
“Bernays’ honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.”—Noam Chomsky
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays,
Or more likely because Dr Seuss movies have been making a ton of cash lately. The most recent one, Horton Hears a Who, pulled down almost 300 million bucks. Every since Grinch blew open the Dr Seuss market in 2000 we’ve had a Dr Seuss movie come out every few years. Capitalism.
The Littles, who had tails, and mouse-like ears and teeth, unlike the Borrowers
For some reason his name gets mispronounced, as I understand. Theodore Seuss Geisel--the "Seuss" should rhyme with "Royce" but people rhyme it with "Loose". I guess he said it that way himself, but supp. the orig. German pronunciation would be "Soyce" (from a TV special about him). He did ad campaigns (Quick Henry, the Flit!) and also some pro-world war II cartoons (for PM newspaper--encouraging the U.S. to continue its war against Hitler, etc.)
There have been some cartoons based on the idea of the evils of environmental pollution, etc. FernGully the Last Rainforest was one. Another was one of Hanna Barbera’s last efforts, Once Upon a Forest...some poisonous gas kills some animals and sickens one young badger (those nasty humans). Rampant consumerism was spoofed in Over the Hedge, where a raccoon, a turtle, and other animals (William Shatner “playing possum”) try to get food from the humans just across the hedgerow...the humans have SUVs, fridges full of food,
big screen TVs, etc. All played for laughs.
The Borrowers say they only take things the average sized people will not miss. The humor in it is there are times
when we say “what happened to that small object? It seems to have disappeared”, and the story imagines that small people took off with it...also the small ones say, “we don’t steal.
We borrow.” (Rationalization...a self-defense mechanism.)
The BBC Christmas special version of the Borrowers (spoiler alert) shows that the average sized family could lose their house. But it turns out that the tiny ones had “borrowed”
a valuable coin. The coin gets “returned” and voila, the day is saved as it’s worth a lot of money as a rare coin. They can keep their house.
Saw it—was great. The backgrounds, etc. are very well drawn, etc. Not limited animation or CGI...close attention to detail.
The first ‘The Lorax’ cartoon had the same greenie-weenie message. It’s just an updated version of the same indoctrination message my generation received.
Of course a lot of it went back to WWII, and seeing Nazis and fascists under every Truffula Tree.
This caught my eye on the book's Wikipedia page:
In a retrospective critique written in the journal Nature upon the 40th anniversary of the book's publication, Emma Marris described the Lorax character as a "parody of a misanthropic ecologist". She called the book "gloomy" and doubted it was good for young children. Nevertheless, she praised the book overall, and especially Seuss for understanding "the limits of gloom and doom" environmentalism.
And this from Seuss's wikipedia page:
But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left. — Theodor Geisel [Dr. Seuss]
Grave of the Fireflies
its on “amime network” on demand right now if you really want to be depressed watch it.
That was a good catch...I generally do not trust Wiki as a rule.
They’re pretty accurate on average.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.