Peter Sagal asks, What did Dr. Suess do to movie producers to make them so desperate to pervert his work? This time around, film makers created a brand-new subplot wherein the Major of Whoville has 96 daughters and one son.
Guess who gets all of his attention? Guess who saves the day?
You should read Sagal’s whole piece (it’s short), but this was my favorite part:
And there’s this — not only does the movie end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father’s love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?
We got into the car outside the cinpeplex and I was quite in lather, let me tell you. How come one of the GIRLs didn’t get to save Whoville? I cried.
“Yeah!” said my daughters.
“And while we’re at it, how come a girl doesn’t get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!”
“That’s rotten!” cried my daughters.
“How come Trinity can’t be the One who defeats the Matrix!” I yelled.
“What are you talking about?” they said.
“You’ll find out later,” I said. “But here’s one: how come a girl doesn’t get to defeat Lord Voldemort!”
“Well, wait a minute, Papa,” they said. “None of us would want to mess with him.”
I took their point. But I still wanted to grab that fictional, silly mayor of Whoville by his weirdly ruffled neck, and say, you see those 96 people over there? Those girls, those women, those daughters? You know what they’re saying to you, every minute of every day that you waste thinking about anything else?
They are shouting at you. They are shouting:
“We are here! We are here! We are here!”
Thanks to Julia for the link.