Monday, March 12, 2012

Brutus Is a 14-Year-Old Girl

I went to see "The Lorax" this weekend with my wife and son. I hadn't read the book since I was probably in Kindergarten. It was really good. I was glad that despite the ads focusing on Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, the movie was really about Danny DeVito (the Lorax) and Ed Helms (the Once-ler). I get the movie has a liberal, "let's save the environment" story to it, which, of course, has angered Conservatives and people in big business.

Who the hell has a problem with trees? Clearly this person who posted a comment on Amazon in reference to the book:
First of all, I'm glad that you aren't above going to library to borrow books because the library is a liberal concept. Offering free books to people so that they can read and become educated--shudder. Secondly, did you not know what The Lorax was about? Also, do you not know that most everything Dr. Seuss has written has a liberal undertone? Also, did you know that Dr. Seuss' earliest job was creating war propaganda for the United States during World War II?

And the fact that you are resorting to insulting the language in the book is laughable. It's a book for children and the point of creating the word "biggerer" instead of using "bigger" is because Seuss used unique and made-up words to tell his stories and "biggerer" fit the poetic pattern better. The book is a poem, remember.

And if you don't want your children reading things with a liberal bias then you will be screening an awful lot of books, TV shows and movies because most everything out there has a liberal bias and most people making that stuff have liberal leanings. Maybe you should, instead of policing your children on stuff that is supposed to entertain them, let them figure it out themselves.

And do you really want to read a children's book that has the opposite message of "The Lorax"? Where it's okay to chop down trees, ruin the environment and essentially destroy the planet as long as you make money? That's the thing about children, they aren't stupid. They're going to question why the tree has to be cut down. "Can't the Once-ler find something else to make his Thneed?" "Why isn't he replanting trees to replace the ones he cut down?" From my experience as a kid, being around kids, raising kids and being around more kids is that kids love trees. And I've also learned that if you don't like trees, you are in the minority.

Anyway, "The Lorax" is a really good movie and it doesn't drag out like so many other kids' movies (I'm looking at you Pixar) but if you don't like being lectured, having lessons beat over your head or pro-environment talking points sung to you, then you probably won't enjoy the movie.

Brutus has mentioned on numerous occasions that he is a loser. To me, it's reminiscent of someone on Facebook posting this as a status: "Why do I even try? Sometimes I wish I could disappear forever." and then having 27 people comment on it, begging the person not to kill themselves or whatever they are thinking but then commenting, long after people have concluded they have killed themselves that "It's a song lyric" or "It's from a TV show" or "I just dropped my glass of milk and was sad about it." It's over-dramatic and mainly just to gain attention.