An open thread dedicated to discussing books, movies, and tv shows we love. And occasionally some politics.

OK, I'll be honest. I've got about one half hour to write this today! Christmas season on top of remodeling and living in two places at once=crazy schedule.

But I really wanted to talk about the Grinch today.

Theodore Geisel, popularly known as Dr. Seuss, was one of the most popular children's authors of my childhood, along with Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak.

Like comic books, children's literature is one of the primary ways we teach morality in this culture, and therefore, to be a children's author, especially a successful one, is usually to be a purveyor of moral standards. And Geisel does this spectacularly well. He tackles racism (the star-bellied sneetches who live on the beaches), fascism (Yertle the Turtle), environmental destruction (the Lorax, one of his most successful efforts). He even tacked Nixon (Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now!).

I used to think The Grinch that Stole Christmas was about spiteful greed: meanness, in all its senses, including the older sense of being grasping and ungenerous:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgP0aUKlmNw]

But actually, the Grinch is not really about greed. He's actually a griefer. While, as an introvert, I can relate to wanting some alone time up on the mountain--and some quiet--what really irritates the Grinch isn't the existence of the village, nor even the noise, because at the end of the story, he WANTS to hear all the Whos crying. What irritates him is their happiness. He wants to spoil it.

From the Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=griefer

Griefer
An individual who uses online games, instant messaging, e-mail, or any other communication method to harass, obstruct, or in some way make an experience sour for another person.

The Grinch is probably Geisel's most famous work, due to it being animated and played on TV as a Christmas special year after year. Probably even more people know about the Grinch than know about the Lorax (who had a similar TV special that made a huge impact on me as a child.)

So it's a successful story, in the sense that it's famous, beloved, persists, and probably made Theodore Geisel some money. And it's also a very effective portrayal of mean-spirited, grasping cruelty.

Why, then, is this the one story I can think of written by Geisel whose moral message has, to a large extent, been turned on its head?

The Grinch has become an anti-hero of sorts to many, who cheer him on and jeer the saccharine Whos of Whoville. Even I, the bleeding-heart near-socialist progressive, have done so.

Why?

I know there were many times as a kid and even more as a teenager when I wished the Grinch would come and take away all the material shit. I hated Christmas shopping, hated the pressure of getting presents for people whose lives I didn't share and who would therefore (I thought) judge my presents harshly; hated the malls (one of my best loves was the mall-trashing scene in Blue Brothers.)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTRXnuoK1ss]

While I would have liked the Grinch better had he left the tree and the roast beast (the best parts of Christmas, IMO) I was actually OK with him taking the rest of the crap away.

Is the love for the Grinch some kind of odd anti-materialism in the culture, poking its head up in resistance?

I'd like to think so, but I don't.

Maybe it's just because the heroes of this tale are so incredibly saccharine that it's not possible to root for them. Cindy Lou Who is like an animated version of Zsu Zsu of It's a Wonderful Life, who only doesn't ruin the movie because her part in it is so small (and yes, I'm being a jerk to that child actor, whoever she was, but it really wasn't her fault: the scriptwriters, and Capra himself, should have toned it down.) Maybe it would have been better if the da-hoo-do-ray song wasn't so annoying. And believe me, even as an eight-year-old, I found it annoying.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqOOUJFv1n0]

Is it that people want the right to be grumpy and alone, and are resisting the pressure to be social and cheery on command because it's Christmas?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFniSmTfzkc]

Or is siding with the Grinch an early example of thinking that cruelty and spite are cool--a turn our culture took in the early 80s which it never, in my opinion, recovered from?

What do y'all think?

And by the way--Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Splendid Kwanzaa to you all!