Question about the release of "The Lorax" in March 2012

Easy. Glorifying sexual behavior is politically correct. Encouraging abstinence is politically incorrect.

With that logic, then NOT showing someone smoking a cigar would be politically incorrect then.

All I'll say about the Lorax is that Hollywood needs to stop making Dr. Seuss books into movies. See Einstein's well-known definition of insanity.

Political correctness has no logic, lol. It's political incorrect to show a cigar these days (which is one rare occasion where PC makes sense, heh).

Unfortunately, that's due to the actions of those who want to push abstinence and their real agenda. It's not so much a "be careful of your future" problem (a lot of kids that do that stuff know they have no future, and don't care anyway). In reality it's a "Be a good little automaton and do what we tell you to. We want you to join our side and vote for who we want you to vote for so we can shape the world in our image." That's where it goes wrong. It's not a "we care about rampant teenage sexuality" it's a matter of control and fear.

The problem mostly strikes impoverished school districts where there's no hope of a future for anyone and they might as well have fun doing that because it's all downhill from there anyway. The very same people that push abstinence are the very same people who want their followers to vote for those that pull public school funding, thus actually exacerbating the problem. Like I said, you have no future, what's the point?

Not to mention the whole being pushed by the Gays are evil crowd that believe every single show on television is brainwashing their kids to be...ugh... accepting.

If there were non-religious based woman's charities backing abstinence education, more people would listen.

I can't simply like this post and go away. I've got to say that I love this post!

I went to a fantastic religious-based private school, yet their sex education was downright criminal. The message of so many abstinence programs is that the methods of prevention are greatly unreliable. This is a lie that causes a lot of young people to abandon all caution. Unfortunately some people are going to give into their hormones no mater what literature is thrown at them. It's not really an excuse. It's biology. It's important for them to have all the facts if and when they do. I don't see this as being a problem of political correctness. I see a lack of balance from all parts of the equation. All sides in the matter speak to what they believe to be the case than what is.

This is true and that's why I disagree with people who just say "education is the key" and leave it at that. Young people can have all the facts in the world and still make the wrong choices.

There is so much pretend charity going around that has very dark ulterior motives. There's so much I could add to the equation about moral quandaries... but what it comes down to is that sex is an amazingly powerful thing, better or worse. It's taboo because we decide to keep it taboo, and the fact that it is taboo makes it all the more desirable, being forbidden fruit. There are so many better ways to teach abstinence than the cartoonish Family Guy style parody of itself religious groups push. I want to know, where are women's groups coming out and saying what really needs to be said? That A) There's a danger that you'll lose all your future potential if you have to drop out of school and take care of a kid and more importantly B) if you're in a relationship, even one that isn't abusive, where your boyfriend forces you to have sex, you're not in a very good relationship. We like to think black and white, all teenagers that have sex are hussies... but everyone overlooks those relationships where the guy (who has no responsibilities and can leave after the baby's out) either intimidates or persuades the woman to rush to sex. Where's the help there?

Sure, there are those who just don't care. Nothing you can do can get through those people. It's no different than overweight people who don't care about their health. But there does need to be balance, and it needs to come with care instead of force.

Maybe they can't be helped, but they should be prevented in some way from harming others or suffer actual punishment when they do.

Actually I think this is said very often. But many girls and women are simply afraid of being alone and no amount of cold "education" can help with that.

That's the more passive type. The ones that are easily persuaded. I hear so many horror stories about abuse, but there's always that too. There are people who are willing to have help, some refuse to listen and suffer the consequences. That just happens, that's life... that's how we learn. If someone doesn't learn from their mistakes, others can. That's the burden of free will and freedom of choice... there's NO freedom from bad choice.

But getting back to the movie subject matter at hand.

Politically Correct DOES bring up some beefs I have with the movie's promotion.

Now, I can kinda respect the fact they didn't want a kid's meal fast food tie in, but how the heck is it any better for them to have a high-caloric carbo-loaded sugar breakfast platter tie in? And for that matter, how come it's such a PR nightmare to be associated with a fast food chain, yet we get promotions for movies about saving whales in Burger King Kid's Meals? There's just something absolutely wrong with that for me. Especially when the movie was a low budget flop and has been out of theaters for 3 months and they STILL have to get rid of soulless plastic Whales.

Also, I give the Lorax people applause for not forcing a bad toy line out upon the world. I could see it doing mildly okay, but then being on deep discount clearance, bouncing around clearance and discount stores until they wind up in dollar stores like the Terminator Salvation and G.I. Joe movie merchandise. But apparently, endorsing "fuel efficient" SUV's (for an SUV, Fuel efficient means you don't have to fill it back up after you leave the gas station) is the higher moral here.

I'm glad that the movie's promotion didn't feature an annoying market spree of wastefulness, don't get me wrong... but it seems everything they do endorse just seems hypocritical.

Wait? Weren't we just talking about the Lorax before?

Re-read the last 2 paragraphs of my last post... I am now.

Not really, I think we all have a fear of being alone to a certain extent.

Oh I agree, at least they had the right idea. But for me it's just another case of remaking a classic for no good reason and undeservingly sucking up all the attention from the original.

It's not so much that, but how annoying is it when movie merchandise just sits there forever because they over order it? Not all of it is bad, mind you. A lot of it is, but most of it isn't. And while it's kind of a mild irritant when it comes to hit movies, big huge failures (Again, Terminator Salvation) sit there clearance after clearance. And like I said, they only order movie based merchandise now. Which I call bull on, because the Adventure Time merchandise kept disappearing off the shelves this Christmas. That's a TV show! One that's not even based off a comic book or movie.

I still see Planet 51 stuff sitting their at TRU. No one wants it, and it's just sad.

Of course, like I said... Lorax endorses sugary, high calorie IHOP breakfasts instead of Burger King Kid's meals and "fuel efficient" SUV's instead of a toy line. It doesn't seem that much of a change, so much as a slight reduction in waste on the part of tossed out kid's meal toys (only collectors don't throw them out) and unsellable action figures.

There actually is a tiny run of merchandise. "Lorax project" Dr. Seuss plush made of organic cotton. You can only find them at the baby goods area of Target, and they thankfully look like the movie. Considering that they still make Grinch movie merchandise to this day (I RULLY hate the bazturdization of the cartoon and movie and book they had on that merchandise with that ugly Grinch they had). Even that horrid Cat in the Hat movie had designs taken directly from the book for merchandise. And other than shampoo and some small Horton plush, they thankfully had nothing there either.

Still, I wish they'd have SOMETHING for Despicable Me besides those carny/crane machine plush. I walked out of that movie wanting to collect Minion toys.

Dude, I'll do you one better. Stop making kid's picture books into movies. Curious George was brilliantly done, Shrek was lucky to come out of warping what the book was about without being terrible (I actually hate the original concept they considered), but the rest of them never end well. Book series with a series of characters, yes... single 20 page thing with a rough page of typed storyline, no.

Well, I was told that my aunt took my 1-year-old cousin to see the Lorax, and that the 1-year-old hated it. I don't exactly know if it was the movie or the experience of being in a movie theater, though we took her to see The Muppets and didn't make much of a fuss. But you could take this as a sign that even babies hate the bad adaptations.

I recently discovered that Danny DeVito also voiced himself in the Spanish dubbed version. Same goes for German, Italian, and Russian!

I actually enjoyed this when I watched it on DVD. Sure it's not the same. Like Little Shop of Horrors as a movie the depressing ending doesn't work. The same thing goes for a book being turned into a movie. The Witches had a happier ending, but nobody hates that movie that I know of. You want to talk bad adaptions.....discuss the live-action Scooby Doo. Aka Scooby Don't.

Here's the problem with the Scooby-Doo movie.

They were writing the characters based on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. No... I'm not kidding. Fred is a goofy idiot, Daphne's vain... Their Pup counterparts. The first film does WAAAAY too much Brady Bunch making fun of the original source... and it worked for that point in time (the fart contest didn't age as well). The second one was much better, actually referencing the show instead of parodying it, except for that Big Lipped Alligator Moment at the end with the then American idol winner that we all forgot. That really fat guy. You know the one I'm talking about.

No... for worse, you look at Yogi Bear. The writing is awful and cliche for the most part, and Ranger Smith couldn't have been cast worse. Not to mention the Mary Sue love story they threw in to get girls to pretend to like it (cuz, you know... Hollywood thinks all girls are stupid and like flat love stories forced on EVERYTHING). But sadly, Yogi and Booboo were almost pitch perfect. And even more sad? It's still not the worst thing Yogi ever done by a long shot. But I actually prefer the Smurfs movie over the Yogi one. At least Hank Azaria was having more fun than humanly possible for that movie as Gargamel.

I have not seen Yogi bear, but I don't think I want to. The reason I hate the Scooby Doo movie is because I loved the original. Scrappy Doo as villian was a terrible idea.