Who hears Horton?

An elephant named Horton, voiced by Jim Carrey, listens to a faint cry for help from Who-ville, a city that exists in a tiny speck of dust on a flower in Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (Twentieth Century Fox)

Dr. Seuss’s much-loved book Horton Hears a Who! has every appearance of innocence. It’s the story of a large animal — Horton — compelled to protect the Whos, a tiny civilization that lives in a speck on a clover and that only he can hear. Horton’s allegiance to the miniature people of Whoville is now a matter of public record. But who, we may ask, is Horton? An elephant of an irrepressibly plucky disposition — yes. An inhabitant of the Jungle of Nool — true. The subject of harassment, assault and forced confinement for his devotion to the Whos – definitely. One of the most cherished creations of Theodor Seuss Geisel, and now the star of a major animated feature – you betcha.

Yet what do we really know about this pachyderm and his sympathies? Is he the big-eared naïf that he appears to be, or does his sweet nature hide a secret agenda? Chances are, most of the viewers of the new film adaptation Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! will not struggle with these questions — seeing as many of them will only recently have mastered tying their shoelaces and making solo forays to the bathroom, judgments of the movie’s value as political allegory may be beyond them, anyhow.

They’ll likely be distracted by the film’s bold, colourful visuals — which closely replicate Geisel’s original drawings, while giving them convincing depth and texture — as well as the nicely orchestrated chase scenes and the energetic characters, including the Mayor of Whoville (voiced by Steve Carell) and Horton himself (Jim Carrey).

With its abundant wit and energy, the film bests the noisy and noxious live-action adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat (2003). It’s also the most handsome production to date for Blue Sky Studios, the Fox animation subsidiary that may be relatively small fry when it comes to computer-generated kids’ flicks but had big success with the two Ice Age movies. Not only is Horton the sprightliest Hollywood ’toon since Ratatouille, it’s also the most thoroughly and wondrously Seuss-ical motion picture since The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, the 1953 curiosity that was the only film Geisel actually wrote.

While Horton has neither the sexual innuendo and grown-up humour of the Shrek movies nor the violent content of The Incredibles, it’s still more provocative than most kiddie fare. That’s because it sticks so closely to the source material. What makes the original story so provocative is its portrayal of a society determined to punish anyone who might step out of line. The tale also encourages a sense of conviction in one’s beliefs in the face of persecution. Though characters and subplots have been added to fill out the running time — Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Amy Poehler and Isla Fisher all voice parts created especially for the movie — the film demonstrates the enduring potency of the story.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, meets one of his creations, the Cat in the Hat, at the New Orleans Museum of Fine Arts in Louisiana in 1988. (Burt Steel/Canadian Press)

Thematically, Horton Hears a Who! might be Geisel’s most ambitious work. While it has much of the cheerful absurdism of Green Eggs and Ham and some of the anarchic spirit of The Cat in the Hat, it also contains serious elements reflecting the tenor of the times in which it emerged. The book was published in August of 1954, just as the Cold War was sending a chill deep into American society, thanks to Senator Joe McCarthy and his red-hunting rhetoric — not a good time for anything that smacked of non-conformity. Geisel was shifting back into children’s books after working on animated shorts like Gerald McBoing-McBoing and films for the military. Back in the 1940s, Geisel drew political cartoons for a left-wing New York paper, in which he enthusiastically mocked fascists, racists and isolationists. (A recent documentary called The Political Dr. Seuss and a compilation named Dr. Seuss Goes to War reveal more about this oft-overlooked side to one of America’s most cherished authors.)

Geisel was particularly suspicious of tyrants who believed that majority rule meant absolute rule. A gentler sort of rabble-rouser, Horton risks personal harm when he stands up to the mob led by Sour Kangaroo, the character whose contempt for Horton and his speck fixation is such that she turns the jungle against him. Geisel may have been trying to inspire sympathy for those suffering under Stalin when he named one of Horton’s chief tormentors Vlad Vladikoff (voiced here by Will Arnett); then again, the character could also be construed as a ridiculous caricature of the KGB spies that McCarthy saw everywhere.

Horton is committed to giving a voice to those who have none, or at least none that anyone with smaller ears can hear. Over the decades, the Whos have come to represent any number of oppressed and slighted groups. The most famous words in Horton Hears a Who! — “A person’s a person, no matter how small” — have been famously appropriated by those defending the unborn. Anti-abortion groups provoked the ire of Seuss and his widow Audrey Geisel whenever they used the phrase. (Some Christian pro-life groups are using the film’s release to further their interpretation of Geisel’s message.)

Screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul emphasize the book’s value as an allegory about religious belief, while mocking those who despise new and unorthodox ideas. One reason Horton is so detested is that he believes in something whose existence can’t be proven; according to Sour Kangaroo — in a line that Geisel did not write — “If you can’t see, hear or feel something, it doesn’t exist.” Horton is cast as a believer who will not be swayed, despite mockery and abuse. Yet he also represents free thought. In the film version, Sour Kangaroo (an appropriately villainous Carol Burnett) gets exercised about what Horton is teaching the young critters of the jungle; she goes so far as to reject his educational system, preferring to have her young ’un “pouch-schooled.” Later, when she’s whipping the other citizens of the Jungle of Nool into a Horton-hating frenzy, she cries, “Our way of life is under attack!” It’s a phrase that conservative politicians favoured even before President Bush applied it to jihadists.

Any movie that climaxes with a group rendition of REO Speedwagon’s chintzy ’80s power ballad I Can’t Fight This Feeling is unlikely to be taken as seriously as the films of Oliver Stone, Michael Moore or Spike Lee. But Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! proves that art cannot be entirely divorced from its sociopolitical context. Even in this brash and Hollywoodized form, Horton remains a symbol of non-conformity, of protecting the powerless, of standing up for one’s beliefs. He’s an elephant for all seasons, and his actions provide a timely reminder of the importance of hearing Whos of all kinds.

Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! opens March 14.

Jason Anderson is a Toronto-based writer.

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