Movie and Television Reviews

Horton Hears a Who is the most disturbing of Dr. Seuss' books. I remember reading it as a child and agonizing over the picture of Horton looking for the worlded flower in an enormous field of similar ones.

The movie version contains that excruciating scene, but turns out to be much more delightful than frustrating.

If you couldn't spare the 10 minutes to read the book, Horton Hears a Who is about an elephant who finds a speck of dust that contains, deep in its core (the animation does a wonderful explaining the speck-world's isolation as well as why only Horton can hear the Whos- his elephant ears.), another world. Conflict arises when Sour, a busybody kangaroo, demands that Horton renounce his belief in the speck people. Horton refuses Sour, of course, but agrees to relocate the speck world when Whoville's mayor, Ned O'Malley, informs Horton the the speck's original move can have a dire environmental impact.

Sour and a Russian vulture named Vlad try to stop Horton.

The animation is bright and not live-action realistic, especially effective for little children, I think. The story proceeds at a brisk pace and despite some moaners, the movie is sufficiently humorous. Vlad sticks out as especially funny character and Horton's bridge crossing scene is brilliant.

Message/Politics:

The movie has a “follow your heart” message: Horton's writers see Horton as defying the controlling Sour and the Whoville mayor's paternal expectations as repressing Jojo, the mayor's son. On the other hand, Horton and the mayor both feel a duty to their fellow “men” in Whoville.

More important is why they feel a duty: "A person's a person, no matter how small.” Pro-lifers have used the line to promote their agenda which is quite understandable. One can also add that a belief in universal human worth- because of each person's soul- is very Christian.

Is the movie conservative or liberal? Well, Horton's a perfect example of how liberals see themselves. Sour is the judgmental homeowner association president demanding conformity within her jungle development; Horton and Jojo are the kind, non-conformists who battle the narrow-minded and old-fashioned system; and the Wickersham brothers are the easily roused, mob-following yahoos whom liberals associate with conservative NASCAR fans or talk-radio listeners. Jojo and Sour's son or “joey,” Rudy, teach their respective parents (Hey, where's Rudy's dad?) a lesson in tolerance, the kind of childhood behavior that brings tears to the eyes of leftists. Whoville runs smoothly, but the writers don't make any political hay over that fact. The most overtly liberal line in the movie is Sour's declaration that she “pouch schools” Rudy.

Which is ironic since homeschooling is one of the most non-conformist decisions a citizen can make. In the spirit of Jonah Goldberg's conventional wisdom inversion in Liberal Fascism, one can say that Sour doesn't represent community standards, but national standards. Or, national socialistic standards, if you get my drift. In the same way that that liberals fury over deviations from orthodoxy and demand apologies from or expulsion of PC offenders (Lawrence Summers, for one.), Sour rouses the community to condemn Horton's supra-empiricism (“You shouldn't believe in what you can't see.”), or because he mentions his faith in a public school (Sour as ACLU attorney).

As for the Rudy and Jojo's defiance of their parents: It's not always as innocent as children reprimanding their parents for not accepting their gay friend. One of the old Soviet Union's greatest heroes is Pavlik Morozov, the good communist who truned in his parents for "hoarding" grain.

Any Russian civil-rights group worth its press releases would complain about Vlad and the mayor's secretary seems to be a sassy person of color.

Horton Hears A Who! (Classic Seuss) by Dr. Seuss