“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.” But not just the trees! With the help of Universal Studios, “The Lorax” drank the left-wing kool-aid and has entered the fight against plastics, and anything artificial. To top it off, The New York Times is upset that the movie doesn’t promote environmentalism enough. Really.
In this adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss book, the screenwriters took a story about saving trees and turned it into an animated flick promoting one of the latest lefty trends, attacking plastics. The movie villain, Mr. OHare, sells air in plastic bottles to the residents of Thneedville. (Selling bottled air has long been the left’s analogy for how silly it is to sell bottled water.)
The first scene of the movie shows what looks like a water cooler delivery truck dropping off bottled air to the residents of this artificial town. The deliveryman proceeds to smell the crisp money given in exchange for bottled air. In a clear mockery of bottled water, OHare is later pitched the idea of portable bottles of air. OHare declares “You gotta be kidding me! You really think people are stupid enough to buy this?”
The lefty website The Story of Stuff features a video on plastic bottles. The narrator exclaims, “Water is free! What will they sell us next, air?” Not surprisingly, the site is made possible by the Tides Foundation, which has received more than $25 million from liberal backer George Soros’s Open Society Foundations since 2000.
Long gone are the days when “The Lorax” is just about ending deforestation. BMI recently detailed how Universal caved to pressures from a change.org petition supposedly created by children to make their advertising greener. Liberals in the media scoffed at BMI and others for pointing out the clear environmentalist propaganda in the film. Think Progress, another Soros-funded left-wing blog, criticized Lou Dobbs of Fox Business for covering the movie’s liberal indoctrination.
A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote in his review that “despite its soft environmentalist message ‘The Lorax’ is an example of what it pretends to oppose.” A film that uses plastic bottles of air to mock water bottles, features a funeral tribute for the first fallen Truffula tree, and songs about the evil of greed is, to Scott too whimsical and overly commercialized.
Scott claims the Seussian controversy is fueled by crazy right-wingers that believe it is part of a “Hollywood conspiracy to brainwash America’s children into hating capitalism and loving trees.” Take away Scott’s bitter disdain and sarcasm, and he’s spot on.
Left-wing groups are also critical of the movie for not being environmental enough. The vehemently liberal Mother Jones blog (another Soros beneficiary to the tune of $200,000) that the new version is “neglecting the environmental message” with its initial promotion and cooperation with a Mazda SUV. Apparently Universal was supposed to promote electric or hybrid cars that the average American can’t even afford instead of the one they used.
Hollywood consistently vilifies businessmen and industries, even as it puffs liberal causes and sensibilities. And woe unto those who dare point out the propaganda for what it is. As was the case with “The Muppets,” the characters actually publicly came out against Fox News and conservatives that noted the film’s stock oil industry villains.
