Anyone See "Horton Hears a Who?"
I just came across a very angry rant by a father of three girls who recently saw the movie. He makes a good point, I think. The movie's writers added a little something special to Dr. Seuss's famous book. Seems in the movie, the Mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters and 1 son. And guess which one of them ends up saving the day? Thats right. The boy.
Wasn't there at least ONE Irregular among those 96 daughters? It seems unlikely that an army of girls couldn't take control of the situation. Who says you have to be male to save the world?
Read a transcript of the NPR clip here. Now discuss.
posted by Kirsten Miller at 3:31 PM
28 Comments:
I see that guy's point, but he doesn't need to be so uptight about it. I mean, it's a movie. In a movie, nothing has to make perfect sense. (And it's based off a Seuss book).
They could have made one of the daughters do it, but it's just a movie, people! That guy needs to CHILL and find some other way to get attention!
(Personally, I liked the movie!)
What the heck? i'm sensing just a LITTLE bit of a gender issue. But for pete's sake, 97 kids? and 96/97 are girls, so they go off and play in a shark tank or something while the ONE boy saves the day?!?! I thoght about seeing the movie, but now theres no way. Boycott horton hears a who!!!
SECOND COMMENT, woo hoo!
Well, I believe that the 'abnormal' person in a movie is most-likely the one that's gonna save it. The son was the most abnormal ( not having talked and being the only boy out of 97), thus, he was the one destined to save the Whos.
The girls saved Whoville, but they didn't want to be in the spotlight so they did it secretly and made it look like the boy did it. They were behind the scenes, telling him what to do.
Girls have better things to do than have people go "Yay you saved the world" to them all day.
Really, that's a boy? I thought he was just a tomboy-ish girl in the previews. Why not 96 stupid jockey older brothers and one smart cool no-nonsense younger sister? But of course it's a MOVIE and unless all the main characters were girls NO ONE would see it if the GIRL saved the day!
Oh, COME ON! This is a movie. That guy needs to get a LIFE. So what if one of the girls doesn't save the day. In the book, the littlest boy does. And to make it interesting enough to be a movie, there had to be that feeling of him being the littlest, and not paid attention to. There had to be something interesting. And as people said: IT'S A SUESS BOOK!
Just my little opinion. :)
96 daughters, one son O.o
....
....
that is scary
I think it's supposed to show that the odd-one-out can make a difference. I guess the girl would've saved the day if the guy had 96 sons... but still, I don't see why they couldn't have done that if they were worried.
Haha, I love Invisible Turtle's explanation.
But why couldn't the odd one out have been a girl?? Guys have been in the spotlight long enough...*shove*
Oh, and I really admire the father. :D
...reminds me of something my mom would do xD
this is a really interesting issue. but i do think that the message is that the odd one out can make a diffference. you don't always have to follow the 'crowd.'
Invisible Turtle, an excellent theory you have there:)
Guess what??? i just watched a movie on youtube about this guy who went to all the starbucks' in NYC (171 of them) in one day!!! the movie is so cool!!!
I heard the same story while driving home from work! As a 6th grade teacher, I come across girls who, caught in the middle of the throes of puberty, find themselves believing in the stereotypes pressed upon them. They're just girls. They can't possibly be good at science or math. It is pretty sickening.
Fortunately, they have a teacher that, like Kiki, shows them they can be small, unorthodox and yes... maybe even a little dangerous.
Great article!
I know this is off subject... but werent they gonna put Iris on the site? I dunno, maybe hey are working on it or something. just wondering :)
About the movie... I thik that it would have been a good change if a girl would have done it... But Im not mad about it. lol
yeah, it's true it's just a movie, but it's also true that tons of boys and girls are going to be watching it. so the girls are going to be influenced into thinking that girls have to be subdued and support the boys, and the boys are going to be influenced into thinking that they're on top of the world. so I guess it's kind of a chain reaction. also, it's kind of bad for boys too, because it puts pressure on them to always be the masculine leader, even if they don't want to. ya know, most little boys want to be pretty and where dresses, but nobody lets them. how is that fair?
Well here's the thing. The 96 girls and 1 boy weren't part of the original book. They're new to the movie. Dr. Seuss was never that careless.
I agree that the point they were (probably) trying to make is that even the "odd-one-out" can still save the day. I like that idea a lot. But why not make the "different" one the smallest, the weirdest, the hairiest, or the most picked on? And why are all the siblings girls? Why not a mix of girls and boys? These are the questions that piqued my curiosity.
They're also important questions. (Which I don't have time to address at the moment.) So for now I'm going to choose to believe Invisible Turtle's awesome hypothesis.
Miss J: Wow, I'm so flattered! The world needs teachers like you!
GRRR! DANG PEOPLE ALWAYS ASSUME THAT THE STINKING BOYS DO ALL OF THE WORK AND GIRLS JUST SIT AROUND AND FLIRT! (sorry to any boys out there, really. I'm sure anyone who reads Kiki Strike is worthy to save the day)
STINKING SOCIETY!
LOL anonymous. I love your indignation.
Wow, if the mayor were remotely humanoid, and his wife had a gestation period of about nine months, he would have to be at least a hundred years old! Unless my assumptions were wrong, he had twins, or had multiple wives...
hehe I think way too much.
phh... *spits out water* WHAT??? BOY SAVES DAY< ASIDE FROM OVER 96 PEOPLE WHO COULD HAVE.... GIRLS MAYBE??
++mae
ugh...pu-shaw. boys are so over rated. they arent even good spies! from my experience they are loud, aggressive and blood thirsty. when it comes to the whole sneak attack thing, they just blow cover and get you all trapped which causes you all to have near death experiences which proves my point. boys never make good spies, therefore i highly doubt one of them would be able to save the world without first going into a very soothing therapy session.
ya know what else i just realized? in the Grinch, the one who saves the day is a girl, but she's a pretty puffy i love pink girly girl. whats the deal?!*sigh*...society today...
and yes, i know its just a stinking kids movie, but you guys got me all worked up so i'm gonna be mad about the fact that the hero is the boy. why not a girl? oh,well, at least we have kiki as our heroine...
also, it's like there is a nearly 97% chance that the hero is going to be a daughter of the mayor, so the fact that it was the one boy implies that simply being a boy raises the probability that you're going to save the world, which certainly isn't true. of course, the movie isn't at all realistic in any respects.
Hey, Jin Ai, maybe all of the girls were ninety-sixtuplets! It IS Whoville, after all.
my problem is that they didn't even pick one girl out of the 96 to have a personality or be more than a fill character. then she could have helped the weird little boy who doesn't talk and everything would've been cool
Anaka I'm sorry but...GET OVER IT! Sorry. Love, Novelgirl
P.S. Visit my blog. I'm a redaer okay?
hello, anonymous, but really, I'm not getting over it, so why should she, and her names ananka, and that was kind of rude.
++m
sorry computer spazzing...
Anonymous Above (Mae?): Thanks, but that's OK. I wasn't offended.
(I started thinking about this because of the gender issue in the movie. it's a bit off subject.) (no offense to any boys out there.)
In this bizarre world called 'Earth', we have stereotypes and expectations that are supposed to be correct, when really they are horribly biased. Boys are raised to be defiant, proud, smart, handsome, etc, etc. Girls are raised to be docile, sweet, kind, etc, etc. [note: now do you wonder why men start wars???] But SOME girls (like us) take offense at this treachery, and we know that really boys are the ones being driven by women, and girls are the key to all success that this world might have.
Again, no offense to boys.
I agree with Lena, and the first comment by "anonymous". I don't think it's the gender issue, and besides, he /is/ the odd one out.
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