Get the Feed
|
S I G H T S | review
Innocence Lost
by Jen Chaney For the past week, as I’ve watched the advertising and cross-marketing blitz surrounding the release of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I’ve been haunted by one question: What would Dr. Seuss think? The prolific, pithy and poetic children’s author, whose real name was Theodor Geisel, died in 1991, so he’s not here to see what they’ve done to his Grinch - or see what’s become of post-tech boom America. Though Seuss long ago expressed reservations about the fast-paced, corporate mentality (read The Lorax for the full story), I suspect that even he could not have foreseen the overwhelming, inescapable, nonstop conspicuous consumption that characterizes modern life. If he were still alive, I believe his fingers would be busily humming, crafting new texts for tots: Horton Hatches a Marketing Scheme; And to Think That I Saw It on eBay!; and his 21st century masterpiece, How the Overconsumption Monster Stole Our Souls. It’s an argument that’s been made before, but is worth reiterating, particularly as we enter the always-frenzied holiday season: Society is losing its heart. No matter what you consider an appropriate scapegoat for our woes - technology, violence on television, an electoral process gone batty - the fact remains that our lives are more complicated and our sense of what’s important is more scattered. Supposedly, Thanksgiving and Christmas are a time to replenish our psyches, give unselfishly to others and renew our commitment to the things that really matter. Every halfway decent Christmas special - from A Charlie Brown Christmas to The Smurfs Christmas Special and, yes, even the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas - has espoused these ideals. But given what’s become of the tale of the Grinch - from a simple book to a sincere cartoon to an overdone motion picture - I can only conclude that it’s impossible to stop our full-steam-ahead-watch-before-I-mow-you-down culture. Simplicity and innocence, though not entirely dead, are dying and Jim Carrey’s version of the Grinch is more evidence of their terminal prognosis. I am not happy to point this out; in fact, as I write this piece, I can feel my heart becoming at least two sizes too small. **** Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot With these lines, Seuss begins How the Grinch Stole Christmas! - his 1957 children’s book about an odd creature who loathes yuletide cheer and the cute little Whos that embrace it. As we all know from hearing the story umpteen times, the Grinch gets a wonderful, awful idea: he’ll dress up as Santa, glide into Whoville in the dead of night and steal the Whos’ presents, thereby ruining their Christmas. The Grinch pulls off his plan splendidly until he hears the Whos singing on Christmas morning, their voices full of happiness. He then realizes that all the food and toys and decorations aren’t what Christmas is about and that even he can’t steal a town’s joy. As George Bailey before him, he has an epiphany, and heads straight to Whoville, carves the roast beast and helps Clarence get his wings ” well, everything but that last part. It’s a wonderful story that can be read quickly yet revisited again and again because there’s so much depth in its simplicity, as is the case with so much of Seuss’ work. One might have thought the text couldn’t get any better”until Seuss and legendary cartoonist Chuck Jones teamed up in 1966 and turned the narrative into an animated holiday special. The 25-minute program is one of the most recognizable holiday films, short or long. The cartoon works because it doesn’t merely remake the book, nor does it try to redefine it; it instead brings it to life and illuminates it. Watching the cartoon, we follow along with the familiar plot, but also get added bonuses like seeing the Grinch’s gnarled teeth, hearing Boris Karloff’s bass-drum brogue as he narrates the tale, and singing along as the Whos croon “Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze!” (Is there an American above the age of 11 who doesn’t know the tune?) As in Seuss’ books, there is a magical innocence to the proceedings and a playfulness that makes the moral of the story easy to celebrate. Jones’ animation is marvelous. Despite Jim Carrey’s enormous talent, there’s not a single moment in the Grinch movie that rivals the gleefulness when the animated Grinch gets his “wonderful, awful idea” - his wrinkled face turns into a series of wide, delightfully twisted smiles and even the tuft of green hair atop his pointed head unfurls in dastardly mirth. No amount of make-up or acting skill can recreate that glorious moment. Despite the modifications, the message of the How the Grinch Stole Christmas is not sullied in the transition from book to ‘toon. Perhaps even more so than the book, the animated version leaves our hearts sufficiently warmed and we’re reminded that material objects may enhance life but they’re not what sustains it. Or, to put this in Seussian language: “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store ” Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
By contrast, I walked away from the Ron Howard-directed How the Grinch Stole Christmas feeling more confused than anything else. The movie takes what was once 35 pages, then 25 minutes, and stretches it into two hours. The viewer sees the Grinch as a baby and learns about his troubled childhood (this to provoke sympathy when he decides to steal the Whos’ Christmas). There’s also a side plot regarding Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski), who has harbored a lifelong crush on the Grinch, and the Mayor of Whoville (Jeffrey Tambor) who berates the Grinch in his effort to win Martha May’s heart. Given the way the Whos treat him, you kind of hope the Grinch does wreck their Christmas. There are a million details that don’t add up in the film, but most critics have already pointed them out. In short, Jim Carrey’s Ace Ventura-esque antics often detract from the story, Cindy Lou Who is kind of annoying and everything in Whoville looks more like Munchkinland than a Seussian landscape. Of course, it’s not all bad. Clearly, Howard tried to stay true to Seuss while also modernizing the story. Anthony Hopkins, perhaps the closest thing we have to a Boris Karloff these days, is a nice choice as narrator. The segments where the Grinch robs Whoville stick relatively closely to the original text. And the decision to include “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” the clever song from the cartoon, is to be commended. But Howard & Co. got it wrong on several important counts. Because of the movie’s somewhat tedious backstory, the Grinch hatches his scheme after already visiting Whoville on two occasions. Though Seuss never states it outright, the book and cartoon both imply that the hermit-like Grinch has observed Whoville from afar but never visited. Since the movie allows the Grinch to interact extensively with the Whos before crafting his devious plan, it seems unrealistic that he didn’t think of stealing Christmas before. The delight of the cartoon version’s wonderful-awful idea moment is completely lost. As for the Whos, they are depicted as greedy, petty, weird-looking louts. Betty Lou Who (Molly Shannon) envies Martha May’s absurdly lavish Christmas lights while all the other Whos practically trample each other to buy and mail presents. In this version, it seems the Whos need a homily on Christmas spirit as much as the Grinch does. The epiphanies come, but via typical Hollywood conventions. Lou Who (Bill Irwin), Cindy Lou’s father, makes a clich’d speech about why Christmas matters. And the Grinch realizes that despite his crimes, Christmas has come just the same. But it’s the presence of Cindy Lou Who that kicks him into high gear, not his view of the Whos’ musical strength in unity.
So much happens in the movie that you leave the theater not feeling moved or at peace, but overloaded - the same way you feel while simultaneously watching TV, listening to MP3s and surfing the Internet. Though I love Jim Carrey, I found his Grinch too similar to his character in The Mask; the filmmakers assume that the modern audience must be stimulated at all times so they force Carrey’s Grinch to make noisy, boisterous jokes instead of just letting the character slide into the story. But here’s the worst part, the bit that shrinks my heart to a fraction in size of the Grinch’s. The crux of Seuss’ tale is that we can’t satisfy ourselves by seeking more trinkets, more junk, more whizbangers and gunk. Yet everything about How the Grinch Stole Christmas 2000 goes against that, and I don’t just mean the film itself. It’s hard to ignore all the cross-marketing between the movie and seemingly every brand name in creation. Naturally there are Grinch toys and ornaments, but does the Grinch really need to be used to advertise Rite-Aid, Rice Krispies and Visa? You may even have noticed that recognizably furry hand stamped on one of your letters from the U.S. Postal Service, along with the words “Happy Who-lidays’ - yup, even the Postal Service is in on the scam. The movie is the theme for its holiday advertising and promotion campaign. To me, all of this Grinch saturation flies in the face of everything for which Seuss, and this beloved Christmas tale, stands. I feel like walking up to the marketing geniuses at Universal Studios and, like Cindy Lou Who, asking “Why? Why are you taking our Grinch away? Why?” The answer, I suspect, is two-fold: because the Grinch will make lots of money and because they can. Audrey Geisel, Seuss’ widow and second wife, has control over her husband’s creations. Consequently, the film’s creators worked closely with her to make sure she was satisfied with the final cut. Of course, if she had said no as she had for many years prior, there would be no Grinch movie. However, she decided to move forward because, according to Entertainment Weekly, she ‘decided a movie could provide franchise fuel for Christmases to come.” “The Grinch was on the way to becoming an icon,” she told the magazine, “but you can’t stop. You go to another medium.” In the same article, she insists that her husband would have loved the big screen version of the Grinch he dreamed up more than 40 years ago. Maybe she’s right. After all, she was married to Theodor Geisel for more than two decades. She certainly knew him better than any of us. Maybe if Geisel were here today, he would give the Opie version two thumbs up. But I like to think I knew - and still know - Dr. Seuss. And it’s hard for me to accept that the Dr. would need franchise fuel or want to go to another medium. In fact, it seems that the Seuss I know - the one who believed that Christmas still comes without boxes or bags - wouldn’t merely look at what’s happened and feel his heart shrink. He’d look at this movie and these Grinch-laden ads and our whole silly, exploitative society, and his heart would just break. Jen Chaney is a columnist and feature writer who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Comment on this article Related Sites |
