Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Horton Heard a Who?

Tonight we saw Horton Hears a Who, which turned out to be much more entertaining than I anticipated. It's interesting on a philosophical level too, whether you look at it as a fable whose moral is that you should have more faith in science, or as an allegory about humanity's relationship with deity--with the disturbing possibility that the gods may or may not believe in us.

12 comments:

Rae said...

Or....you just enjoy the random Japanese anime fantasy sequence and the REO speed wagon songs. ;)

B.G. Christensen said...

That was a beautifully hilarious sequence.

Christian said...

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie as well.

B.G. Christensen said...

It's nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while.

Scot said...

It's nice to have kids so you've a good excuse to see such movies, isn't it? I can't wait for wall-e :-).

Christian said...

Pshaw. We're not waiting until we have the kids to go see Wall-E.

B.G. Christensen said...

Yeah, Scot, remember that you're talking to the guy who spends most of his free time reading superhero comics. I don't need an excuse.

C. L. Hanson said...

I haven't seen this film, but I'm a little hesitant about it because of this.

B.G. Christensen said...

Yeah, I was bothered by that too. Toward the beginning of the movie it establishes that he has these 96 daughters, and then we're introduced to the son, who is the heir apparent to the mayor's job. At the time I thought for sure one of the subplots of the movie would be that one of the daughters steps forward and proves she's the better future mayor, but that never happens. The movie focuses on the boy proving that he doesn't have to be the next mayor because he has other talents, but all 96 girls remain in the background. It's really kind of anachronistic, even within the context of the film itself, where it's established that among the mayor's ancestors who were all mayors before him are women.

I suppose whatever feminist points I get for noticing the problem in the first place are taken away because I forgot about it while being entertained by the rest of the movie. I'll go sit in a corner now.

C. L. Hanson said...

LOL, don't feel bad!!! This sort of thing is so typical in films that it's easy to miss it...

Anonymous said...

Hey, no need to sit in a corner, LOL. There's nothing wrong with enjoying stuff you know to be problematic on some level - I certainly do it, or I'd be unable to watch 97% of what's out there!

It's only a problem IMO when people go into denial of the problems in order to maintain their enjoyment, or when they're just so selfish they don't care. I personally see no conflict between enjoying something AND critiquing the ways in which it sucks. B movie fans have been doing it for years. ;)

B.G. Christensen said...

Thanks, Chanson and BetaCandy. I'll raise my chin now and head back out into the world.