How the Lorax Got Polluted

There may be all kinds of reasons to defend the Lorax — Dr. Seuss’s wondrous children’s fable that’s also a seminal book about conservation — from the wrath of Lou Dobbs and Fox News and others to whom the children’s book-turned-Disney film is little more than liberal propaganda. The problem with that is, children’s movies (and books, and puppet shows, and everything) have always espoused a message of caring and giving while mocking greed. There’s a reason for it: Most people would rather have their kids learning about the Golden Rule before they start learning about hostile takeovers.

The Lorax’s message of caring for and protecting your local environment is extremely valuable for young minds, a point I’d argue till I passed out. But that’s just the book. With corporate tie-ins making a farce out of the Lorax’s ideals, I’m not convinced that the film version of the environnmentally-conscious orange monster is even worth defending at this point.

“I don’t want to be gruff about it, but we’ve got to wake up and smell the oil burning,” says Danny DeVito, who voices the Lorax. “I feel sometimes the only way to get things done is shake people up a little bit, and the Lorax is not a guy who pussyfoots around. He’s not a guy who uses kid gloves.”

The book is inherently political — Seuss himself "called it “propaganda”, likely because he created the Lorax to be so exceedingly, uncompromisingly anti-industry. Indeed, the Lorax is such a staunch environmentalist that on the 40th anniversary of the book’s publication, last year, Emma Harris wrote in Nature that the Lorax character was a “parody of a misanthropic ecologist,” giving a “gloomy” view of the environmental movement that may not be suitable for kids.

But now that’s moved to the big screen, The Lorax has really jumped the (endangered) shark. It’s been underwritten by a host of competing forces that push it past a basic fable into a narrative that’s supported by actual government agencies and companies that stand to profit off the message.

It’s not surprising that the Forest Service has made The Lorax part of its ad campaigns; I’m sure the agency would love to have a real person who’s as vehemently anti-industry and anti-logging as the Lorax in its ranks to help protect the shrinking lands under its purview. Hell, I’d love to see that too.

Now, I have no problem with the Forest Service advocating saving trees, even if it’s advantageous for the agency to do so, and I won’t claim Dobbs isn’t a jackass if he’s trying to argue the opposite. But in all of his zaniness, his points about the government supporting The Lorax‘s political message have merit, even if it’s still just an agency concerned with forests using a movie about protecting forests in its ad campaigns.

What I do have a problem with is the God-awful Mazda campaigns tied into the movie. For adults dealing with the real world of compromise, the Lorax is loved and hated for being such a ridiculously staunch environmentalist. Dude refuses to give an inch, which isn’t realistic, but certainly makes him a compelling character. That character is now being used as a shill for the CX-5, a small SUV that’s being billed as fuel-efficient and co-friendly. What has the poor Lorax become?

We all know the real Lorax wouldn’t have chosen a new SUV, no matter how fuel efficient it is or green its materials are. The guy was a conservationist to a fault, which means he likely would have walked everywhere. Barring that, he’d have taken a bike or public transportation. He’d at least have known that an efficient used car would be much more “green” than buying even a Prius, which takes the equivalent of around 1,000 gallons of gas just to make.

That’s the farce of the silver screen version of The Lorax. Now that buyers interested in green purchases make up such a considerable part of the market, advertisers have been clamoring to push anything into that segment, which is how you wind up with Levi’s continually pushing for greener production processes and Wal-Mart eliminating stock of non-concentrated laundry soap.

At the same time, you’ve got people touting Boeing’s new Dreamliner as eco-friendly, which, although it’s one of the most fuel efficient jets ever, still guzzles more gas per passenger than a car or train. Boeing deserves praise for its engineering skill, but in presenting a jet as eco-friendly in general — and not just as more green than other jets — ad and marketing folk are ignoring other options. That’s natural, as no one wants to compare their high-flying airplane to a lowly train, but consumer need to think of those choices if they’re truly trying to be green.

The message that the Lorax touts in his stubbornness is that conservation is all about making intelligent choices. Replacing a brand-new incandescent bulb with an energy-saving CFL might not make sense when you consider the energy used in manufacturing; it also doesn’t matter if your bulbs are more efficient if you leave them on more, and water-saving jeans lose their eco value if you buy five pairs when three would suffice. So while Mazda may advertise its SUV as more “green” and Lorax-approved than its competitor’s option, it leaves options that are more green overall — buying a smaller, more efficient new car, or buying used, or even driving a Ferrari one day a week and biking the rest — off the table. That marketing-pushed half-truth about conservation — that buying the more green competitor counts for everything — misses the mark entirely.

While I might agree with Dobbs that The Lorax movie is subverting our children, it’s not for the message he’s scared of. The Lorax has been subverted itself by the message of greenwashed consumerism that’s altogether too popular these days. Buying a pair of shoes that says they’re more eco-friendly than competitors is commendable when you need them, as is making any green choice with your wallet. Those choices have created the entire green industry, and convinced scores of companies to clean up their act because the market demands it. That’s a very good thing. At the same time, buying something because it’s “green” isn’t conserving, it’s just lessening an impact. And that’s the most basic issue with the Lorax being co-opted for green ads: To teach kids that we can buy conservation is just plain wrong.