Monday, March 24, 2008

The New Dr Seuss Film Is Anti Home Schooling and Anti Evangelical?

Sorry not buying that yet. Though I suspect this will run rampant throught the net. Crunchy Con has the story at "Horton" hates a homeschooler. I very much want to go see this movie.

However I think the "evidence" of this hidden message is sort of flimsy. Also I am not sure if the blogger he cites is not perhaps just having a little fun with this and us.

O a personal note, I was "blessed" with a second grade teacher that had a decree that she would read no Dr Seuss books to our class. Her reasoning was that there were so many "nonsense" words in those books that it was worthless. What vision!!!!! No wonder my parents took me out of public schools after second grade.

Let me put a political angle on the movie too that involves A little "Race for the White House "08 triva involving past GOP hopeful Mike Huckabee. In the Slate article The fascinating marriage of Mike and Janet Huckabee we hear:
But Sitzes, who was the best man that day, May 25, 1974, says everything you need to know about Mike Huckabee really goes back a little further than that, to his drama club turn as the narrator in Horton Hatches the Egg. "Mike playing Dr. Seuss was like Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow; he was so good we won state on the strength of that performance. If you're around Mike now, you'll hear him say, 'I say what I mean and I mean what I say.' Well, I hear that and think, That's Horton! 'I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant's faithful, 100 percent!' " He's told this story to reporters before, he notes, and to sadly little effect—but never to a one-time drama camp portrayer of Mayzie, the lazy bird who skips off to live it up while Horton sticks around and hatches her progeny." So you will appreciate this,'' Sitzes says, grateful to have found a taker at last: "Mike is Horton, and he's been true to his wife and never had any kind of—there will be no Monica Lewinsky or Gennifer Flowers—because Mike and Janet are what they are."

Imagine If I my second grade teacher had read Dr Seuss to our Class!!!! It might have been me running for President. Ahh Louisiana Public school education comes back to bite me !!!

2 comments:

lvschant said...

Actually, I am thinking the review of Horton may be right on. My husband took our boys to see it right after its release and came home with the same report.

I was fully expecting great things from it because of its potential to give a pro-life message in a subtle way... instead the home-school bashing? In the meantime, I also received another email from another source reiterating the same thing and giving more details about the ugliness of the "pouch-schooling" character played by Burnett.

I am very disappointed...

James H said...

Perhaps you are right. It just seems bizaree that the people that prodice a film like this would go out of their way to antagonize a part of their audience