So my wife and I took our daughter Morgan to her first movie this weekend – Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who. Very fun to do. The previews were a bit traumatic – didn’t think about those, but the movie was fairly tame and it ended up being a great time though I probably enjoyed the movie more than Morgan did.
I loved the movie – seriously. You should go see it or rent it when it comes out. Without projecting a bunch of spiritual themes into the movie, I loved the portrayal of Horton as one who is enlightened to the existence of another world in the context of an unbelieving, overly rational community. For those that don’t know the book or movie. Horton is an elephant who hears a sound on a “speck” on a flower. He believes there are people on this speck – and he is right. There is a whole society on the speck – Whoville.
There’s a great philosophy of perspective. Before Horton encounters the Mayor of Whoville, neither society had any awareness that their previous worldview was limited and insufficient. Horton is horrified by the reality that he could destroy a whole society with one wrong move and the Mayor of Whoville is horrified by the reality that his whole world is just a “speck” in a larger world. The movie does a good job capturing the varying reactions against such an “alternate reality” including high degrees of denial or apathy. It’s a very threatening reality for people to deal with – that there’s so much unknown in the universe that has an impact on you and your world than you ever knew before.
There’s some great faith stuff too – Horton must continue to believe in the face of discouragement and the threat of persecution. He also has an opportunity to “recant” his belief that there was life on the speck. He refuses. Horton is a true faith hero in an unstable and myopic world.
More on Horton:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says that this movie promotes racism. He spoke at my college commencement and is one of the greatest Bruin athletes ever, but he’s out to lunch here. His logic is a bit off in my mind.
Some pro-lifers have also made a lot of news using the pro-life message of Horton “a person is a person no matter how small” to protest abortion, but they’ve done it in some pretty inappropriate ways. Amazes me how people end up accomplishing the opposite of their stated goals because they go about in reactive and inflammatory ways.
Here’s the trailer: