SEUSSAGEDDON

 

We are committed to action.  To that end, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts, including educators, reviewed our catalog of titles and made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of the following titles:  And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer.  These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.  (Statement from “Dr. Seuss Enterprises” concerning its recent decision)

While shut in my house, perched like a sad vulture

I ran in to a thing some call “cancel-culture”

When I turn on my telly all I can see –

are red foxes running like Flooter Fla Fleas.

“Flooter Fla Fleas?” You might say with strange looks;

I answer “They’re critters that live in strange books.

Books that ‘til recently were allowed to run loose,

And they come from the mind of a man who’s called

“Seuss””.

Dr. Seuss is someone who I grew up with – like billions of others.  Unlike billions of others, since I was born in Springfield Massachusetts (which is also the birthplace of Theodor Seuss Geisel) I have some reason to feel a bit more connected to the good doctor.  My first grade (and still my favorite) teacher, Miss Murphy, took great pains to tell us that we came from the same city as the author of “The Cat in the Hat”, and through the years Springfield has come to fully embrace its connection with Geisel, to the point that in the city’s quadrangle there is an arrangement of statues of Seuss’s creations, from Horton to The Grinch – along with a life sized statue of Geisel perched behind his easel – a great image and (you might think) an even better lead in to a possible Seussian rhyme involving those two words. 

Horton protects a Who and simultaneously avoids stomping on young Aidan Shea

Statue of Dr. Seuss at his easel while the author and The Cat in the Hat stand beside him (Cat on left).

The only problem with this is that while many have pronounced his last name as if it rhymed with “easel” it is actually pronounced “GUY-sel”.  If you think that’s a problem consider this – “Suess” – almost always spoken as if it rhymes with “juice” is actually properly pronounced as rhyming with “choice”. 

Don’t start pronouncing it that way – everyone has pretty much settled on the “juice” side at this point.  But I do want to talk a bit about “choice” – those that have actually been made – and the right to make them.

The internet has been in one of its many kerfuffles this week over the decision made by something called “Dr. Seuss Enterprises” to block the licensing and further publication of six books penned by the late author.  Those are listed above – and, to be honest – I am only familiar with three of them.  In this I am not alone - On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer are all lesser members of the Seuss oeuvre.  On the other hand And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo and McElligot’s Pool are among the favorites of Geisel’s works. In fact – each can be found fully contained within the covers of a book published in 2004 called “Your Favorite Seuss”.  I know this because I have that collection and used it to read each one of those now un-licensable books to my children.  In case you were wondering – yes, that book was published under license from – you guessed it – “Dr. Seuss Enterprises”. (The fact that I pulled this book from my son’s bookshelf and am reading it now points out that these books have not been “banned”.  They are simply going out of print for future editions. No “book police” will be knocking at my door to reclaim my illicit Seuss).

Today I went scrambling back to “Your Favorite Seuss” in order to find just what might have been deemed so salacious and objectionable in each of the included books that – presumably – they will not be included in the next iteration of “Favorites”.  I found the following:

In “Mulberry Street” (which is an actual street in Springfield, by the way) Seuss recounts the tale of a boy who observes a “plain horse and wagon” on his way home and gradually adds to its “plainness” by imaging he sees zebras, elephants, giraffes, police escorts, the mayor, brass bands and…

There it was – towards the end of the book the boy also adds (with an accompanying picture) “a Chinese man who eats with sticks”. 

This is evidently what caused the good people at Dr. Seuss Enterprises to pull the first ever published children’s book by the all-time best-selling children’s author from its list of publishable works.

In “McElligot’s Pool” there are two images – one of a man lounging on an island in the “Tropics” and an “Eskimo” standing on an ice flow “from beyond Hudson Bay”. 

Finally, in “If I Ran the Zoo” there are references to the land of Zomba-ma-Tant – accompanied by pictures of helpers from said land “who all wear their eyes at a slant” and pictures of residents of the (non-existent) “African island of Yerka” that exhibit similarly exaggerated racial characteristics while assisting in the capture of a canary type bird called a “tizzle-topped Tufted Mazurka”.

Look – I could get in to whether ascribing racial characteristics to inhabitants of a non-existent land constitutes something “hurtful and wrong”, whether the use of the term “Eskimo” is stereotypical or merely descriptive – or whether depicting someone who is supposed to be Chinese as actually having, you know – Chinese characteristics - can be harmful to children.  I could do that – but no matter what conclusion I draw there will be those who hold otherwise - and while I might persuade some – I seriously doubt I persuade the arbiters of good taste who reign supreme at Dr. Seuss Enterprises (hereafter “DSE”).

They are entitled to their opinions but it is not their understanding of their own opinions that gives me reason to find fault in their actions.  It is their understanding of their mission to which I take exception.

The people at DSE are charged with preserving the intended legacy of Theodor Geisel – and they have decided that said legacy is best preserved by removing from future publication these six books.  If there was no discernible instruction or direction from Mr. Geisel himself as to whether he wished this sort of thing to take place then they would be the parties charged with interpreting that intent.  However – it does appear that Geisel had formulated a clear and understandable position when it came to the imagery in his books – he was quite happy with the way they looked and how they were written.

We know this because he had actually reviewed his works and made all the revisions he felt necessary during his lifetime. Here is a passage from Judith & Neil Morgan’s excellent “Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel”:

In all the years since Mulberry Street Ted had made remarkably few revisions in ongoing editions of his books.  Sometimes his stubbornness was involved. Janet Schulman told him that the time had come to delete the reference to Spam in The Tooth Book: “No teeth at all/says Pam the clam/I cannot eat/roast leg of lamb/or peanuts/ Pizzas!/Popcorn! SPAM!...” “It’s such a World War II word,” Janet argued “that kids today don’t have a clue!”

Ted conceded the point but after working on the rhyme for several days he called her and said, “Nothing else works.”

“I knew you were going to say that” Janet said, and the presses rolled again with Spam intact.

The revisions that Ted considered most significant involved Mulberry Street.  “I had a gentleman with a pigtail” he said. “I colored him yellow and called him a Chinaman.  That’s the way things were fifty years ago.  In later editions I refer to him as a Chinese man. I have taken the color out of the gentleman and removed the pigtail and he now looks like an Irishman.” Despite protests from feminists, Ted refused to change the line in Mulberry Street “Even Jane could think of that.” “It remains in my book,” he explained “because that’s what the boy said”.

So – what does this show?  It points out that Geisel was not given to changing his text, even for things that had “gone out of date”, it shows that he had already reviewed his artwork and writings with an eye towards making what changes he thought were merited, it indicates that interest groups (“feminists”) were particularly out of scope when it came to his assessment of what required change.  How then does removing his works from publication further the legacy that Theodor Geisel (not the individuals at DSE) wished to leave?

Answer – it doesn’t.

There is no doubt that certain of the images contained in these books are fairly characterized as “racial caricatures”.  There is also no doubt that Geisel, an outspoken liberal who published entire books (“The Sneetches”, “The Lorax”) designed around toleration and sensitivity, was no racist.  What the DSE is trying to avoid is the unwarranted connection of the caricatures to racism, intolerance or insensitivity.  Unfortunately, taking their route towards doing this would deprive readers, especially young readers, access to these books.  That is not the best way to accomplish the desired goal.  “Mulberry Street”, being the first Dr, Seuss book, is a landmark in children’s literature.  “McElligot’s Pool” is a brilliant study in expanding the mind to encompass a wide range of possibilities – perfect for children learning to read. In the introduction to “If I Ran the Zoo” John Lithgow notes that he was inspired to write children’s picture books because he read this book.  He asks, “If Dr. Seuss had not written his, would I ever have written mine?”.  Indeed.  The legacy of Geisel’s work is far more likely (actually “infinitely more likely”) to give rise to future children’s authors than future racists.  That is the measure DSE should have used when making their decision, and they blew it.  They are a commercial enterprise and in their minds the best business decision was to avoid controversy and pull the books from future publication.  Free enterprise baby, free enterprise.

Nonetheless – I can’t help but conclude that in making their judgement the overseers at DSE would have been better off simply placing a declaration at the front of each book in question stating something to the effect of: “There are images contained in this work that may be construed as racially insensitive in the current context.  Dr. Seuss Enterprises acknowledges this, apologizes for their offensive nature, and states that it is and will remain fully committed to furthering the true goal of Theodor Geisel, which is one of tolerance, sensitivity and inclusion”.  That’s what I would have done – they didn’t. I fully concede that they have the right, as the controllers of the Geisel estate, to make a business choice that I disagree with.

That fact remains – they did choose otherwise – and “choice” is at the center of the controversy that has erupted in the days since that decision was announced.  Conservative critics have pounced on the DSE decision – chalking it up to a cultural attempt to indoctrinate children to a “liberal” point of view.  Tucker Carlson, for example, went on a lengthy diatribe espousing exactly this position. To buttress it he practically read “The Sneetches” to his audience in its entirety, decrying how removing books “like that” would doom America to a dangerous left-wing future.  Those of you who remember the list of books being pulled from publication will immediately understand the problem with this argument, for on that list you will not find any reference to “The Sneetches” at all. 

Carlson seems to be saying that if “this sort of thing” is allowed to continue the natural progression will be that eventually DSE will decide to pull all of the Dr. Seuss titles from circulation, will douse all the Seuss books (and themselves) in gasoline and light everything on fire.  If that does not appear a logical progression, well, Tucker Carlson and Fox News have never been accused of over-indulging in logic.

Here’s the thing – this issue has now become one between a group of people (DSE) who did not make the right choice and those (Carlson, Fox, outraged conservatives) who ignore the fact that DSE still has the right to choose. The people at DSE made a business decision based on what they saw as best for their brand and most likely to accomplish their “mission”.  It’s a bad choice – but it’s their choice and it does not really have implications for the survival of the nation.  That’s why I would have no problem with someone saying that what DSE did was wrong in the sense of being improper reasoning – but not with them saying it is wrong because, well, “down with this sort of thing”.

Of course, the distinction is a fine one.  I feel that the images in the Seuss books are inherently offensive but not worthy of removal.  The Tucker Carlson’s of the world feel they should not be removed because they are not offensive.  I feel that there are a number of instances where an author makes use of an offensive image in order to (i) more accurately reflect the attitudes of the character (“because that’s what the boy said”); (ii) shock the reader in a manner that forces them to gain a deeper understanding (read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”); (iii) show the superficiality of perceived differences between cultures (certain of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, particularly “The Last Battle”); and/or, because they genuinely had no intent to offend (e.g. “eskimos”).  In all of those instances I think it best to overlook the offensive nature of the work.  Note that I do not say “you’re demented if you think that’s offensive” – they are offensive – but art, literature, certain types of political speech – really, all kinds of things – are more societally useful if they are allowed to incorporate the desire to offend into their being. I’ve identified myself as a “radical moderate” many times.  When the folks on the far right and left start this sort of battle the moderate thing to do is listen to both and make a reasoned judgement.  The radical thing is to realize that when doing so the earth will not open to swallow you whole, nor will the sky fall.

Is there a “cancel culture”?  Sure there is.  Is it being perpetuated by “liberals”?  Well, not by this one anyway.  There are numerous examples of this phenomenon arising on either wing of this particular tizzle topped Tufted Mazurka.  One need only look at the furor over certain of Robert Mapplethorpe’s images to find an example from the right side of the spectrum.  The job of the rational person is to pick out when the “outrage” of either party is straightforward and true or perhaps born of one who’s been sniffing some glue.  Is what they are saying entirely proper – or is it something that should be thrown in a hopper? “Enough” you beg me, “from your senses you’ve parted”. “Oh no” says I, “I have only just started…”

While travelling north through the snooker-backed hills

I caught up to a group of Cantankerous Frills

The Frills they are known for their bothersome ways

Always attempting to get in to frays  

And insisting that you go along with their plans

Agree with their thoughts, accept their demands.

Frills they are such a bothersome lot

I wish that I had met with them NOT.

But things got much worse, for, going south, on our trail

We met a large group of Rupert-backed Snails

Now the Rupert-backed Snails are quite fast, to be fair

But they never seem to go anywhere

Which meant that it left the Frills and I staring

Straight into the eyes of the Snails, uncaring.

Each group blocked the other, that can't be denied

To proceed on their way each need step aside

Now the Snails, faced south, said they’d go only right –

While the north facing Frills replied “Please be polite.

I only go left, its just in my nature,

Don’t force me to go to the legislature”.

And so a quandary did each party enter

Afraid to divert and be called a dissenter

Each Snail made a rightward step to the side

Which each Frill mirrored with a leftward side-stride

And further away each party would glide

From myself, and the rest, standing by the road side

Each Snail and Frill paired off like two stubborn bison

Until every last pairing vanished past the horizon

And I, left alone, after this battle of wills

Continued to pass through the snooker-backed hills.