This Friday, The Lorax opens in theaters nationwide. It’s a movie based on Dr. Suess’s book by the same name, and it deals with issues of the environment and man’s role in it. This post is only the beginning of our coverage–we will soon be releasing a parents’ guide to environmentalism in kids’ media, as well as a close-reading of the book and movie. But for today, we hope you’ll appreciate meeting Dr. James Wanliss!
Dr. Wanliss is a member of the Cornwall Alliance, defined on its website as a “coalition of clergy, theologians, religious leaders, scientists, academics, policy experts, and others, the Cornwall Alliance is committed to bringing a proper and balanced biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development.” Unlike such groups as the Evangelical Environmental Network–whom I also contacted for comment but got no response–the Cornwall Alliance takes a skeptical view of man-made climate change and states “some environmental concerns are well founded and serious, others are without foundation or greatly exaggerated.” This is a pressing problem, they say, “in developing nations, where basic issues like inadequate sanitation, widespread use of primitive fuels like wood and dung, and primitive agricultural practices go largely unaddressed while more distant and theoretical issues receive the lion’s share of funding and attention.”
In this interview, Dr. Wanliss, also a professor at Presbyterian College in South Carolina, tells us how he as a physicist and Christian from South Africa came to be involved with the Cornwall Alliance. He also gives us some background on Conservation International, an environmental group that has partnered with the movie-makers of the Lorax to provide curriculum resources for teachers, parents, and kids who want to take the emotions of the movie into solving real world problems like loss of the rainforests. Are our forests really in danger? What is the proper relationship of man to Creation? Listen and find out!
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Hey guys, are you going to take your kids to see the movie? What are your questions/concerns? What do think we should value about the story, if anything? Any better kids’ books on the subject?
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I’m very wary of left wing propaganda disguised as children’s entertainment. Cars 2’s villan was “Big Oil” and The Muppets had a rich businessman as its enemy. The Lorax is just another one. Young kids, especially preschoolers, don’t have the critical thinking skills to decide what messages are being fed to them. My kids are school age and they won’t be seeing the Lorax.
Thanks for chiming in, Sheila. These are definitely themes here that are in other stories as well. Hope to post more on that today!
What does being “left wing” or “right wing” have anything to do with a Christian viewpoint on a movie? I feel sorry for you and your children, obviously you don’t know what it truly means to be a Christian. God is spirit and He is worshiped through His son in SPIRIT. DUH! I was trying to find a common sense Christian view on the movie as far as gratuitous violence, overly sexual content, ungodly themes, etc. Saving the environment and respecting the things that God made is very Christian, so we are going happily to see the movie. Horray!
From the preview, The Lorax looks like a fun movie with a lite message. Emily will tell us more (she’s the movie reviewer around here). Still, certain free-floating assumptions find their way into mass media that may not be all that Christian. and that’s what we hope to explore in the next few days.
Thankfully, I agree that caring for the natural world isn’t a left or right wing issue. And I suspect that’s what most viewers will appreciate about the movie. I hope that comes through in the interview–my first question to James was, what can we appreciate about the Lorax?
However, the Lorax makes his appearance within a highly politicized culture, and however benign the story itself may (or may not) be, parents need to be aware of how it fits with the other books and movies aimed at kids, and they ought to brace for its being used to promote agendas well beyond deforestation. See our Parents’ Guide to Environmentalism in Kids’ Media.
I feel sorry for Sheila’s children. Children are the product of their environment… I’d hate to be a product of that.. The Lorax was A FANTASTIC movie. with an equally fantastic message.