I’m “biast” (pro): who doesn’t like Dr. Seuss?
I’m “biast” (con): the trailer looked hideous and sexist; Hollywood has screwed up Dr. Seuss before
I have not read the source material
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
Boys Will Be the Center of Attention
The preponderance of male protagonists in Hollywood movies is a problem in the aggregate: it’s frustrating to see endless successions of stories about boys and men having adventures and growing as people, but it’s very hard and almost always unfair to single out any individual film to criticize on that basis. The crisis isn’t that The Movies tell too many men’s stories, or that men’s stories aren’t worth telling — it’s that we don’t see an equal number of stories featuring girls and women having adventures and growing as people.
But once in a while a film comes along — as Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax has — that demonstrates that it’s no accident that men’s stories predominate, and shows us just how blinkered, narrowminded, and pig-headedly sexist Hollywood is when it comes to ignoring female perspectives. The industry simply doesn’t see girls’ and women’s lives and needs as worthy of telling stories about… not even when one particular girl’s desires are the obvious driver for the story being told.
For The Lorax isn’t merely one more story about a boy that could just as easily have been about a girl: it’s a story that has a female protagonist right at hand, with motivations directly connected to the themes and morals the story wishes to explore, and she is shuffled off to the side. Audrey (the voice of Taylor Swift: Valentine’s Day) lives in the plastic candy-colored dystopia of Thneedville, where the grass is fake, the foliage is electric, and even fresh air is a commodity for sale. And she longs for nature: “What I want more than anything in the whole wide world is to see a living tree,” she sighs dreamily, for there is not one single living tree to be found in Thneedville.
Audrey is the creation of screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, who were tasked with the job of expanding to feature length Theodor Geisel’s short picture book [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon Canada] [Amazon U.K.] . She is the direct result of Daurio and Paul’s dilemma of how to tell for the screen a story about a quest to find out why the world is in such poor and unnatural shape; a visit to a creature known as the Once-ler, who holds the key to unraveling this mystery; and a message that unless there is someone who cares deeply about trees and nature and humanity’s impact on the environment, nothing will change.
And what did Daurio and Paul do with Audrey? Did they make her the central character, a person whose deep love for trees represents so powerful a concern that it can change the world? Of course not. They went on to invent Ted (the voice of Zac Efron: The Lucky One, New Year’s Eve), who doesn’t care about anything at all beyond impressing Audrey. It is this imperative — that Ted make Audrey his girlfriend — that is the key driving force behind this story about the destruction of the natural world and the way to restore it to its former glory.
I want to be perfect clear about this: the adolescent sexual desperation of Ted, who appears to be no more than 13 or 14 years old, is considered of more consequence in this world and to this world than the actual environmental-minded dreams and fantasies of Audrey, who isn’t even Ted’s peer but is clearly a couple of years older than him. (The team of Daurio and Paul also perpetrated the hideous Hop and the even more hideous Horton Hears a Who! — their Despicable Me is clearly an outlier of quality that was an aberration.)
Imagine you are a little girl watching The Lorax. What do you learn from it? You discover that even if you are deeply worried about the pressing issues of the world, what you think and feel doesn’t matter next to the necessity of forming a romantic relationship with a boy; your concerns needn’t motivate you to take any action, and your concerns matter only insomuch as they motivate a boy to like-you like you. Of course, this is an abhorrent and sexist message to send to little boys, too: that your primary motivation in life should be to impress girls, even in the face of civilization-threatening disaster. You needn’t have any interests of your own, as long as you can fake it when girls are around, in order that they may let you kiss them.
Now I feel I must forestall the usual howls that get hurled at me when I talk about movies from a feminist perspective. This is most certainly not me overreaching for a reason to complain about Hollywood. The abhorrent gender dynamics of The Lorax contribute very specifically to the horror of tedium and heavyhandedness that is this poor excuse for a children’s film. Because there is no reasonable motivation for Ted’s actions in leaving the Terry Gilliam’s Brazil-esque “sanctuary” of Thneedville on his quest to find a real-live-tree for Audrey — unless you sincerely believe that teenaged boys are nothing but perpetual erections — The Lorax must bend over backwards, in whatever ridiculous ways it deems necessary, in order to hold itself together. Except it cannot even manage that. So much of the padding-out we are subjected to is actively nonsensical. The villain here is the profit-hungry mayor of Thneedville, O’Hare (the voice of Rob Riggle: 21 Jump Street, Big Miracle), an Edna Mode wannabe, except Edna Mode was interesting and brought a unique voice of dissent to a world that needed it. O’Hare is making a fortune selling the residents of Thneedville clean air, an absurdity that is allegedly sent up in one sequence featuring a TV ad that uses sex to sell bottled air — as in, Men should buy this brand of bottled air because sexy women will want to fuck them if they do. That might be funny and pointed if the story weren’t doing the same thing: wanting us to be engaged by the prospect of a teenaged boy who will “get lucky” (if only on a PG-rated kiddie scale) if he behaves in a certain way.
The bizarre bloody-mindedness of the film to ignore its own blinders gets increasingly infuriating. When the Once-ler (the voice of Ed Helms: Jeff, Who Lives at Home, The Hangover Part II), living out in the denuded wastelands, demands of Ted an explanation for his interest in hearing the story of the destruction of the trees, Ted can only hem and haw — I cannot help but wonder if, at this point in their narrative, Daurio and Paul suddenly realized that they’d chosen the wrong protagonist, for Audrey would have had a stirring and passionate answer for the Once-ler where Ted has none. Then again, it’s clear that Daurio and Paul have even less respect for women when they’re not conventionally pretty like Audrey. For they have the Lorax (the voice of Danny DeVito: Solitary Man, Nobel Son), a sort of forest guardian who stars in the Once-ler’s flashbacky tale about the cutting down of the trees, make fun of a woman who doesn’t fit into narrow notions of femininity. One would think that a character meant to be a spiritual representation of nature would not hold the same chauvinistic views of gender norms that some humans do, but no.
This is the bit where I’m supposed to talk about how lovely the animation is and find other nice stuff to say about the film. Fuck that shit. This is a disgusting example of the worse that Hollywood has to offer, because it represents how far over backward the industry will bend to perpetuate its own horrible “ideals,” even when they are completely contradictory to the story it wants to tell. No amount of pretty animation can overcome that.
And white. Don’t forget white. Just saying.
And heterosexual.
And neurotypical.
Good points, all. The one thing I would say is that they probably aren’t doing this because they are personally sexist. I think the writers and producers feel like boys won’t want to see a movie about an adventurous girl and that girls won’t mind seeing one about a boy, especially if he’s doing something “romantic” for a girl. In other words, they write the story this way because they think that’s what the public wants. I think the Hunger Games and Twilight Series should cause them to rethink their premise, though.
It’s hard to say. I guess it would depend on how you’d define sexist. Is a sexist simply someone who thinks girls are of less value and their lives are less interesting? Or, is a sexist someone who is not able to imaginatively put himself into a girl’s head, and create realistic girl characters of interest? I could certainly believe that many male directors and male scriptwriters and male producers might have trouble doing the latter. And, then compound that with the problem that boys seem far less willing to see movies with a girl protagonist (much less movies in which the majority or even half of the secondary characters are female) than girls seem willing to see movies featuring boys.
In reviewing the 12 highest grossing movies of 2012, I discovered that, most often, a 33% female to 66% male ratio was the most major studios were willing or able to go in primary movie roles in blockbuster high risk franchises.
But that’s the exact problem. If everyone’s willing to watch movies about boys, but no one wants to see movies about girls, then isn’t that saying that girls are inherently less interesting and worthy of being protagonists than boys, and that boys are the default so “anyone” can watch them, but only girls can watch other girls?
You don’t think maybe just possibly kinda that that has a lot to do with boys being taught not to enjoy stories about girls, or identify with girl characters? I mean, seriously: when a boy is a fan of a nearly-all-female-cast show like MLP, they get a special name (“Bronie”) instead of just…fan of MLP. Parents, particularly fathers, freak out if their wee son wants to watch Disney Princess movies (let alone collect/play with the dolls). When A Wrinkle In Time came out, I saw more than one critique of the poster, which fronted the female characters, by saying, “Don’t they want boys to be interested?” Hell, Marvel made one movie about a female superhero, one that was completely absent of the male gaze (see Carole’s costume and overall wardrobe) and made no bones about targeting women and boys, and the fanboys lost their freaking minds, and no, I am never getting over that.
Boys aren’t just not encouraged to identify with female characters. They’re actively discouraged from doing so. Meanwhile, girls have to either identify with male characters of make due with this really nifty female character whose only function is to prop up the male protagonist, and who is sometimes the only named female character in the movie (Ratatouille, I’m looking at you). Blah, blah, male-default-casting, fragile masculinity, etc, but chiding women and girls for watching things with male protagonists isn’t the way to fix it.
While I totally agree, I already know and stated this stuff. Perhaps you accidentally replied to the wrong person? And also, “chiding women and girls for watching things with male protagonists”…umm, when did I do that?
Now I’m not here saying the creator’s of the film stayed completely true to the book or that they took 100% artistic liberty with it, I believe they were stuck somewhere in between.
The Audrey character is not present in the original Seuss book, so there is no reason for the staff to flesh out her character. She is stuck in the same filler boat as O’Hare and Ted’s grandmother. You say the screenwriter’s invented Ted? They named the book’s protagonist; however, Seuss wrote said character as a young boy. This movie does have flaws in terms of straying from its original message but I think sexism may be a bit of a stretch.
How about “basic job competence and pride in their work”? Oh, wait, Hollywood…
You may want to rethink your statement that Seuss wrote the character as a young boy. Please read my comment (and the comment it answered) at http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2012/07/dr_seuss_the_lorax_review.html#comment-606409611
Please also re-read the book.
Alright, in the book the main ‘child’ is never referred to as a ‘he’ but the illustrations do show a what appears to be a boy pretty clearly. If the screenwriters were going off the book then they would write the character similarly to how it is depicted in the book.
If they could have perceived the character as not male then why did it have to be female? If Seuss never said it was a boy then we could have it be completely androgynous or maybe trans. I think this gender binary you and the author have expressed thus far is rather close-minded.
I’M close-minded and expressing a gender binary? You’re the one who went-along-to-get-along with the movie and called the curious child “a young boy”.
I suspect you didn’t read the comment I linked to because I was saying that the gender wasn’t defined by Seuss. I didn’t say it was a girl, either. I said it could have been either and that turning the story into a Quest For A Boy To Win A Girl was sexist.
Lee, you can use ad hominem attacks against Ms. Johanson all you want (and as a defensive male who feels threatened by your erosion of gender privelege, you may feel that that is your best strategy). You can cherry pick all you like (and, yes, there are a few movies for children in which the main character driving the narrative is a girl), but the representation of females in all high-budget major motion picture studio movies, much less movies for children, is appalling (although the representation of people other than those of European ancestory is far worse).
I did a brief survey of the 12 highest grossing movies of 2012, which are listed below:
1. Marvel’s The Avengers
2. Dark Knight Rises
3. The Hunger Games
4. Skyfall
5. The Hobbit
6. Twilight: Brk Dawn 2
7. Amazing Spider Man
8. Brave
9. Ted
10. Madagascar 3
11. Dr Seuss the Lorax
12. Wreck It Ralph
I then tallied the gender and racial ancestry of the actors who played the main characters driving the narrative, and found that 3 were female; 9 were male; 0 were of Asian ancestry; 0 were of African ancestry; and 100% were of European ancestry.
Then, using Rotten Tomatoes, which, in its movie reviews, includes photos of the six actors/actresses with the most screen time/ dialogue, I tallied the gender and racial ancestry of those six actors for each film. Here’s what I found for all 12 of those films in the aggregate:
31% of those roles went to female actors; 69% went to male actors
1.7% of those roles went to actors of Asian ancestry; 5.8% of those roles went to actors of African ancestry; and 92% of those roles went to people of European ancestry.
If you’re a young girl, and particularly if you’re a young girl of African or Asian ancestry, you’re not seeing yourself represented on the screen in any way that mimics real life. And, although Ms. Johanson focused compeletely on gender, she was right to point out major motion studios’ appalling lack of diversity.
While I agree with you that if women feel that females need more and better representation, they need to make more movies. They ARE starting to do that, and films made by woman directors do depict more females, and even females that relate to each other directly (versus in relation to the lead character, which is male). Think of “Zero Dark Thirty” directed by Katherine Bigelow: the main character was a female CIA agent, and her friend, also a female CIA agent, figured predominantly in the plot. But, unfortunately, major motion studios are not primarily interested in making movies, but in maximizing profit: and the studio male executives believe they can’t do that, it seems, for the most part, without a male lead of European ancestry and a majority of the predominate secondary characters also being males of Eureopean ancestry.
But, in addition to making more movies that feature more and better representation of females, women have another option: to NOT take their daughters to movies that always relegate them to the sidelines or offscreen altogether, and take their daughters to the park, to martial arts classes, to girl scout events, to learn to bake and sew, to camping trips, to wall climbing gyms, and to dance classes. Women have the option of leaving the heavily male-of-European-ancestry-favored world of motion pictures and fantasy behind, and entering and mastering the real world.
They can leave the fantasy to the men and boys, and deal with reality, which, after all, has far more women and girls in it than at least 70% of major motion pictures.
I agree with the general sentiment, and I admire the effort you put into the research, but I’m curious, mathematically speaking, how you broke down The Avengers. It has six or seven main characters, not counting the villains. Each of them had an important role to play in some sections of the movie and a small role in other scenes. How did you decide which character was “driving the narrative”?
Darn, you may be right. Robert Downey Jr (who played Ironman) might have figured too predominately in my estimation of the male lead in “Marvel’s The Avengers.”
Thankf for the heads up.
“I do not adhere to the indoctrinations of our politically correct nanny state society.” As Ms. Johanson is operating from a private website critiquing the product of a private corporation, Universal Pictures, which created “Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax,” I don’t see how any so-called “nanny state” figures in here.
Ms. Johanson never once called for quotas dictated by government on female representation in films: she just pointed out that the existing female representation was appalling.
Yeah I’m with O. I think the inclusion of a female character driving the male (as per the original) renders the environmentalist message gender neutral, even if it is reflective of the age-old meme of women driving men out of the home to “save the day,” or invent those tools humanity needs to survive. For chrissakes, it was a male character in the original; how can this be sexist AT ALL?
>cough< It was not a male character in the book, The narrator is the child who is NOT gendered in the text. The story is NOT about a boy. It is about a curious and adventurous child of unknown sex. The illustrations have someone with sorta short hair and wearing pants, but, I had plenty of playmates as a kid who were female and looked just like that.Go reread the book. Look closely at the text for your proof that the child is male. You won't find it unless someone has doctored a post-movie version.
I’m making an animated version of the Alice books by Lewis Carroll. I’m going to give Alice a boyfriend who follows her around with a sword and fights off her enemies. How can that be considered sexist? The main character is a girl.
Nice. The over reaching motivational drive of this film was dampened because they used the wrong protagonist. It certainly would have been more human and given the film some much needed dimension if Audrey’s more genuine desire was explored in the film, and not some stereotypical, hollow teenage fantasy fulfiller. Ted was a sub plot or background character at best.
Very perceptive how you pointed out this technical disfunction. I enjoyed this article.
Clearly you missed it when she said this:
Sometimes, you just can’t say anything good about a subject, no matter how hard you try. And you shouldn’t have to. Because sometimes, a thing just sucks. She’s entitled to her opinion, you’re entitled to yours. Live with it.
I agree! You should show her My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Also pink and girly, with lots of female characters who are unique from one another, with the lesson that there are many ways to be a girl. All of the girls are diverse and varied, and the girly ones(Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie) aren’t treated as lesser for their femininity. There’s even a lesson on how being girly and ladylike doesn’t make somepony(yes, they say “somepony” instead of “somebody”) weak.
There’s also Star vs. the Forces of Evil(it’s kingdom even takes place in a matriarchy! And the titular lead is a princess named Star Butterfly who is allowed to be both girly AND tough!), Me, Eloise, Messy Bessey, PreCure, Sailor Moon, Matilda, The Princess and the Frog, Hair Love, and the American Girl doll collection and book series if you want more entertaining and positive media for your young daughter to watch. Basically, anything with a positive female protagonist who isn’t stereotyped, has multiple other female characters on her side to interact with(so passing the Bechdel Test is a must), and grows and develops over the course of the story is a good option for young girls. No more Smurfettes. No more sexy window dressing. We just want good female characters who are at the center of their stories and we’re meant to care about, is that so bad?
Once again, I agree! It’s funny how stories for men are allowed to be as male-dominated as they want without anyone batting an eye, but when something female-dominated comes along, suddenly it’s “sexist”. Because everything needs to be about men and including men. What about the men? Then again, to those accustomed to privilege, equality seems like oppression. That’s why we have MRAs. After all, it’s not like there’s not a million other things they could be watching instead–instead of complaining about a show aimed at girls. I just wish other people would see it this way.
She loved MLP! And Star, and a great many others. She’s 13 now, and has moved on to anime ;).
I watched this movie when I was in third grade, during our school’s Thanksgiving day party, and again in fourth grade, during the last few months of school. Both times, I didn’t notice the sheer, obvious sexism present within the film. I did, however, notice(possibly subconsciously) that the girl hardly did much besides be pretty and be the love interest who motivates the male character on his journey(wait a second. Wasn’t she the one who wanted to see a living tree?). This is just like the “Where Are The Women?” criteria: the awesome and interesting girl exists to make a boy improve himself. I’m glad I recognize the sexism now.
Needless to say, I haven’t seen this movie since(though I do remember “How Bad Can I Be?” apparently being a jam!), and thanks to this article, have no plans to anytime soon.
If you want to call attention to the lack of African-American representation in animated films, then why don’t you create your own project dedicated to just that? One person can’t juggle tackling every issue on the planet, as much as some of us would like to. That’s why we need more people to talk about various issues that are negatively affecting society at large, so it can be fixed. Plus, it’s very hard to speak up on behalf of a group you don’t belong to without speaking over those who are part of said group and could probably explain it better than you ever could. This doesn’t mean she doesn’t care, but you can’t expect her to do everything. But if you care so much, then why don’t you do it yourself?
Doesn’t sound like you’ve ever been a teenage boy either. Maybe wanting to be an athlete, wanting to drive a car, or wanting to wear a certain style of clothing has virtually nothing to do with sex drive at all(because teenage boys are able to have interests outside of sex)? Explain how the two are connected. Plus, you totally ignore that ace boys exist.
And those are four movies you just named there, not “dozens”. MaryAnn is a film critic who has watched plenty more movies than you and could probably name more recent films with male protagonists, so I’d like to believe she knows what she’s talking about when she claims to see a dearth in female representation in cinema, unlike you.