Sunday 20 April 2008

Horton Hears a Who

A friend took three of my kids and me to see 'Horton Hears a Who' yesterday. It was great fun and a remarkably true to the tale presentation.

I was a little saddened by the unnecessary snide remark about homeschooling at the beginning-but that was soon forgotten as the film unfolded the story of Horton the elephant who hears the call of the Who and protects the speck on his clover flower, come what may. He is 100% loyal and will not sacrifice the Whos of Whosville to the unbelieving horde around him.


I took my 14yr old, 5 yr old and 3yr old. They loved it and I have to say I think the 16 and 19 yr olds would have too :)


I was interested that a girl who lives with my friend (my friend took her in when her family life broke down) couldn't see the point of the film at all. "It's just an elephant talking to a flower!" she told my friend before she left for the cinema. "Why do you want to see that?"


Pro-life

The Pro-life movement have taken Horton very much to heart. "A person's a person no matter how small" is an important truth. Sadly it seems that Dr Seuss himself did not actually recognise the truth he had written. The man is dead now so he can't speak for himself so I will be cautious about what he meant when he wrote the story. It is true Seuss wrote very clearly about all sorts of issues both political and moral-and I treat some of those tales with caution too-but Horton speaks clearly that a person does not have to be big and powerful to BE a person.


Whatever the answer-it's a fun movie and the fact is "A PERSON IS A PERSON NO MATTER HOW SMALL."

2 comments:

Ebeth said...

Hi WSNS!

My 2 daughters and I went to see this movie as well. As homeschoolers ourselves, we didn't know about the beginning reference....as homeschoolers as are always late to stuff and missed the first 5 minutes of the movie! We loved the motto from Horton, A person is a person, no matter how small! Pro life!!

So, I agree with you. Several homeschoolers didn't go because of the homeschool mom comment, but wow, they missed the true meaning of the movie!

Hugs!

swissmiss said...

An e-mail message went out to our homeschool group that this film was very anti-homeschooling and I was soooo disappointed because I LOVE the message of this book and read it to my kids a lot. So glad to hear that it isn't a theme of the entire movie. Will skip it in the theatre and rent it when it comes out so I can edit out the comment. Yea!!!