Associated Press
Lou Dobbs thinks this little guy wants to "indoctrinate our children."
It was pretty amusing in December to see Fox News invest some energy into targeting the Muppets. Eric Bolling, you'll recall, actually went after Muppets twice, first accusing the movie of trying to "brainwash our kids" against capitalism, and then again soon after, insisting the Muppets are "terrible" for "demonizing" capitalism.
A chastened Bolling eventually backed off, but the right's interest in children's entertainment continues unabated.
Fox' Lou Dobbs, for example, told viewers last night there's "a story you won't hear anywhere in the liberal national media," and it involves Hollywood "once again trying to indoctrinate our children."
The problem, apparently, is a new movie about a Dr. Seuss character called The Lorax.
The graphic that aired during a clip of the movie declared, " 'Lorax' Movie Pushes Anti-Industry Message." [...]
Dobbs then said, "The president's liberal friends in Hollywood [are] targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children."
As Dobbs asked his panel about "this sort of insidious nonsense from Hollywood," the graphic read, "Tree-Hugging Dr. Seuss Character Featured In New Universal Movie."
This kind of paranoia seems rather silly, but what amazes me is how often the right goes after children's entertainment.
Perhaps the quintessential modern example was Jerry Falwell going after Tinky Winky the Teletubby, but that merely started a lengthy, larger campaign. One conservative group went after “Shrek.” Another targeted “Shark Tale.” James Dobson launched a broadside against SpongeBob SquarePants, while Fox News’ Neil Cavuto perceived “Happy Feet” as political propaganda. The “Harry Potter” series has been targeted any number of times by conservatives complaining about witchcraft, and the Christian Coalition targeted Twilight because “it’s just not normal for young people to idolize a vampire.”
What's actually not normal is having so many conservative adults perceive secret political messages in harmless fun for kids.
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What's wrong with teaching children to be good, decent human beings?
We're going to have to wash your mouth out if you keep talking that way.
If you teach them that then they won't grow up to be extremist republicans. Where will they draw from to keep their insanity thriving.
I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees!
UNLESS.
They then grow up to be democrats!
Look,over there it's Satan. Gumby to the rescue? Davey where are you? Gawd save us from these idiots wrapped in preachers robes. Save us from these false prophets of doom. Save us from our unwillingness to believe this crap they are doing is real.
Don't forget that Tinky Winky is hiding out there somewhere, ready to wreak sparkled havoc on the sanctity of American homes.
Well, let's be clear, The Lorax did have a strong pro-environment mesage. I just don't understand why that's a bad thing.
I saw a news story the other day in which a class of school kids actually petitioned the studio to change the Lorax's website to include environmental messages because that is the character's main message. And the studio did.
Most kids get the message until they get home and their parents make them watch Faux.
Yep. One of Suess' greater contributions (among many). To my recollection, The Lorax was published during the formative years of the Ecology/Environmental movement and helped a generation to think of the earth in a very different way.
From the movie trailers I've seen, I'm not sure how much of that message will be communicated to the audience.
Jurgan, republicans are going after the EPA, and seeking to undo all regulations pertaining to making industry cleaner in the US. (Can't cut into the CEO and shareholder profits, you know.)
Environmental messages are counter to the cry of "Drill, Baby, Drill".
Environmental concerns could stop the Keystone Pipeline from going right through a natural aquifer that is the only water source for much of the mid-west, and supports 20% of US agriculture. Then the 2000 temporary jobs (currently overestimated as 200,000 "good" jobs!) wouldn't happen. But neither would the inevitable accident that would foul the water.
Republicans want to be able to poison our environment with impunity, but parents listen to their children and do what their children tell them to do (!), and if children are upset about the environment, they can actually influence their parents' purchasing and voting decisions.
Jurgan, let's be clear, Louuu Dobbs is crazy, but Louuu Dobbs is on Faux Outtabusiness Network so he has an audience of 10 living people, 4 dead people and 1 bored dog named Stewie.
What people on the right don't seem to understand is that the State of Nebraska (that reddiest of Red States) is what derailed the Keystone pipeline more that environmentalists. It refused to allow Keystone through its borders for fear it would contaminate the aquifer and destroy its agricultural industry. So much state's rights.
Many years ago I worked as a manger at Crown books. When Dr Suess died a made a widow display commemorating him and his work. Among the books displayed a copy of The Lorax. One customer (in a heavily Democratic neighborhood) went apoplectic when he saw it displayed. The Lorax has bee a Conservative bugaboo for years.
OMG..they are BULLIES, pure and simple. Women? check. Girl Scouts (little women)? check. Fictional characters? check. They never go after anyone they think will whup their ass. Cowards and bullies.
Ever see a fascist that wasn't?
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Children's puppets are going to teach them how to be a socialist, gay, radical leftist, community organizer, anti-capitalist and a few others I cannot think of right now.
Now you've done it. Next they will attack Miss Piggy for playing a strong female and wanting an inter-species relationship.
Wow Paul! Your comment really just made my entire day!
Well, you know what happens when a Pink marries a Green!
Pig on frog sex? Call Santorum so he can get on this abomination.
And Bert and Ernie were a gay couple!!
Steve, have you not seen the original 1970s animated Lorax TV "movie"?
Dobbs is absolutely correct on this one -- like many, many Seuss books, The Lorax had a very intentional, very clear point of view. Call it indoctrination, call it education, call it entertainment with benefits but it was not just mindless animated fun. Which was precisely what was great about it. The Lorax may be the strongest environmental protection movie ever made.
The original, that is. While I have not (and will not) see this disgusting new version, it is beyond evident from the trailers that it is nothing like the original story, and shamelessly trades on Seuss (and his characters') names while abusing the concept. The Lorax would never - never - have even considered hitting a woman. And if it isn't told entirely in rhyme, it just isn't a Dr. Seuss story. bah. That is what Dobbs should be complaining about. not the message.
It should be obvious from the commercials that this new movie takes place years/decades after the original story ends.
And from the feel of it, to me it seems to be more like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with the Whovillites unaware of anything deeper or more meaningful until 'something happens'. 'Lorax' seems to be more about corporate aggrandizement (everything is bought and fake) versus, say, the beauty and simplicity of life.
I've been pleasantly surprised with the CGI Seuss movies and I hope that - while I did wish for a straight-up adaptation - the adjunct romance and grandmother chaperone won't take away from the overall film.
I'm curmudgeonly in an "accept no substitutes" sort of way on this. Then again, as I type this is am sitting under a framed, signed and numbered cel of the Lorax standing on a truffula stump giving the "I speak for the trees" speech. I'm not exactly a neutral reviewer. :)
This is not a new thing. I was born 2 months after Sesame Street debuted, and that's a show that's ALWAYS being demonized for perceived anti-American messages, not least of which the odd relationship between live-in buddies Bert & Ernie.
And it cuts both ways, as people on the left would often deride "Golden Age" shows like Leave it To Beaver for showing an idealized version of America that did not reflect reality in the slightest, where problems were always solved in a half hour and moms always looked as perfect as the homes they supposedly spent all day cleaning.
I remember in the 70s, getting a comic book in grade school, published by Walt Disney, where Mickey schooled Goofy on how easy it is to conserve energy (and it wasn't the only occasion I got pro-conservation messages in cartoon form at school) and two different sets of parents pitching a fit, one set complaining because we don't need to conserve energy it's a liberal myth it's FINE, and the other for using mindless entertainment tools like Mickey Mouse in school, an institution for learning, thank you very much.
What I'd like to see is a show where the people bitching about a movie like The Lorax get a chance to say WHY a pro-environmental message is a bad thing. So we might laugh at them.
If anything, be upset because there hasn't been a Dr. Seuss-based movie made yet that accurately reflects the messages Geisel strove to tell. The original TV specials are way better, if more simply told.
Don't forget Cars 2 apparent Anti-Oil message!
But that had Larry the Cable Guy in it!!!!
Larry the Cable Guy is a Commanizt an' not even from the Souf.
Last time a Democratic President had the economy rolling we spent an entire year solely devoted to lab testing the President's semen and trying to compel him to drop his drawers for a jury to see if he had any "distinguishing characteristics."
One little bit of economic good news and we're rolling back birth control and imposing state-mandated vaginal probes. Makes me yearn for a little economic bad news so we can start talking about economic inequality again.
Children's shows also get targeted when Dems are doing well. Under Clinton Bert and Ernie were gay and covers of Little Mermaid VHS tapes had to be pulled because the underwater castle turrets made evangelicals think of penises.
Don't forget an earlier example, when Rev. Donald Wildmon claimed that Mighty Mouse was harboring support for cocaine use. (Mighty Mouse apparently held a handful of rose petals and sniffed them, but because he's Mighty Mouse, the rose petals went up his nose. That Wildmon couldn't tell the difference between rose petals and cocaine probably tells us all we need to know about him.
By the way, I looked, and it was opium, not cocaine, apparently. My bad.
Beware, BEWARE! Next, childrens' shows will teach them MATH and SCIENCE and other Satanic witchcraft!
Why must anything with an environmental conservation message be perceived as Republo-bashing?
I just imagine what crazy hype the movie "Fern Gully" would get if it came out today. Same thing. Wasn't Avatar also the same thing? Everyone loved THAT movie!
"targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children."
A technique those liberal Hollywood types learned in Sunday School!
http://www.jesusandkidz.com/
Transference. These (insert epithet here) right wingers are HUGE on accusing liberals of the tactics the right wing are famous for. What astonishes me is the way the lies manage to stick, as if they were fact - had veracity.
Elitist? Satanic?
Those are words to bring us all together.
The Right's problem with children's entertainment is that they should be working.
Cleaning toilets, perhaps, or in mines with spaces too small for adults.
Thank God Captain Kangaroo is off the air . Mr Greenjeans - with Green in his name probably some kind of subversive environmentalist. Dancing Bear - some kind of Russian implant We don't even want to discuss Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Moose.
And what's with those ping pong balls?
You forgot Kukla, Fran and Ollie as well as The Garfield Goose Show with Romper Rabbit (local Chicago show). Hell you might as well throw in Romper Room too.
OMG. I loved Captain Kangaroo when I was little and cannot stop laughing right now. Too funny. Republicans would have an issue with anything that is on PBS right now for kids. Sid the Science Kid comes immediately to mind. Good times.
Seriously!!! It's Dr. Seuss! DR. EFFIN' SEUSS!!!! Of course it contains a liberal message, you twit (Dobbs, that is)!!! Seuss is the same guy who wrote Horton Hears a Who, The Star-Belly Sneetches, and The Butter Battle Book, among others. He even slipped an anti-capitalist line into a very famous Christmas story (the same Christmas the 'Publicans claim the liberals are trying to wage war against, mind you):
But I'm totally not surprised that the Ilk of Ignorance is trying to raise holy hell about other so-called libral-minded cartoons and children's show. They're still sour about Veggie Tales...
Funny thing is how quickly the righties become tree huggers if their gated communities are at risk of invasion by Wal-Mart or a new road.
It is kind of ironic that there is not much mention of "Glee" which gets good ratings, and, oh yeah, is on Fox.... But it seems like recently, some are starting to question it's influence on the right.
You know the party of profit may have a more accepting attitude if they are the one profiting from the show/film. Until, that is, the voices from below drown out their winnings...
Of course, this Lorax is being brought to you by a giant global corporation, which will be marketing the heck out of it. Oh, and one of the movie's sponsors is an SUV. Talk about missing the point.
I guess the far right loves the Grinch and feel that his giving back at the end was his own decision and should never have been forced or taxed?
Didn't they also soil their drawers over Wall-E's anti-corporate/environmentalist message?
Yup, they did.
I turned on Fox sometime around Christmas and there was this kid on the TV explaining how people with guns won the west because they were so brave that they were able to kill all the natives that were armed with sticks and strings.
The Nazi party in Germany even got the idea of concentration camps from the Oklahoma territory, Indian reservations, and smallpox-contaminated blankets.
The genocide of the American Indian lasted for about 400 years.
The whole rest of the world is trying to say that murder is a bad thing.
Then there is Fox TV trying to glorify genocide like it is a good thing.
And the Iranians are busy building nuclear weapons just in case one of the nutty genocidal maniacs in the Republican party presidential race manages to get elected.
Is it possible to lampoon this whole Fox-TV-genocidal-maniac-thing in a colorful way?
Please?
I suppose when your faith is based on the supernatural it lends validity to vampires, witches, wizards, and imaginary creatures or cartoons...
@Ali Davis: If you're out there you should send a link so people can read your reviews of Huckabee's Reagan stories (whatever they were called again).
So we can't indoctrinate our kids, but they can?
http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/03/7243270-huckabees-911-kids-video-yes-really
From the picture: Lou Dobbs thinks this little guy wants to "indoctrinate our children." - Is he afraid the Lorax is after HIS job?
On the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", were 'Boris Badenov' and 'Natasha Fatale' some kind of Right-Wing Anti-Communist propoganda? When the Road Runner causes a boulder to fall on Wile E. Coyote's head, is that a metaphor for invading Iraq? Elmer Fudd blowing Daffy Duck's face off with a shotgun is really about 'taking out' terrorists? Hey guys, did you know that if you play the theme song from "Mr. Ed" backwards, you hear 'satanic messages'?
I trust America's children to have a little more sense than the Republicans/Conservatives do!
Irony alert! These Yahoos claim they don't believe in witchcraft, wizards, or global climate change and yet, they freak out whenever anyone mentions anything that isn't rooted in their religious (Fox News) orthodoxy. By claiming that all these things are dangerous, they are actually giving them a power they wouldn't otherwise have. After all: why should anyone be afraid of something that isn't real and/or doesn't exist? It makes no sense!