Over at the Washington Post, Philip Bump confirms a suspicion of mine. Fox News has been going absolutely ballistic over the "canceling" of Dr. Seuss books but hasn't shown the actual offensive images themselves:
The Washington Post isn’t showing the images for obvious reasons, but they can be seen elsewhere. But you know who else has avoided showing the images? Fox News.
Instead, the network’s coverage is heavy on B-roll footage in which cameras pan across Seuss titles seen on bookstore shelves....None of the books shown there are among the ones which the Seuss estate has pulled from publication.
The reason for this is obvious. Here, for example, is one of the images:
This is so obviously offensive by today's standards that even the whitest Fox News viewer would cringe at seeing it. And that would ruin the whole schtick. If Fox viewers realized that the images in question actually were offensive, and not just the fever dreams of some lefty social justice warriors, they'd realize that Fox was duping them.
So no pictures for Fox! Much better to rail endlessly and let their audience assume that this is just some ridiculous liberal freakout over nothing. That's much better for ratings.
These books will be back soon enough.
nope. you think seuss's estate gives a damn what the likes of sean hannity thinks? (assuming the likes of sean hannity is capable of "thinking." so far, there hasn't been much in the way of evidence that he is.) if the estate hadn't made an announcement, no one would have noticed.
this is truly the most bizarre, useless, meaningless argument since bill "piece of garbage" o'reilly declared there was a "war on christmas." this isn't a decision by some third party to not publish these books. it's a decision by the entity that OWNS them and it has every right to pull them if it so desires.
I think this is sort of what makes it so messed up, and it's the reason that so much of the "canceling" that the right is so exercised about doesn't have a good legislative fix available.
Apparently a certain flavor of activist has recognized that media companies are extremely skittish about offending even an extremely tiny segment of the population over anything if they can help it, regardless of the merits of the claims. I certainly agree that the If I Ran the Zoo image above is offensive and should probably be pulled, but I think it's interesting that it's basically the only image that gets highlighted in these stories, and I went through my copy of McElligott's Pool and had a very hard time figuring out what was so offensive that the publisher needed to torpedo what is otherwise an awesome book.
The point is that it's true that at least some of the images probably should be removed, but the process feels extremely uncontrolled and arbitrary, and it's up to the publisher's internal attitudes to basically decide what literary cornerstones can and can't be seen by the public. You can still rent Triumph of the Will on Netflix, presumably because whoever owns the rights to it isn't going to go in on the same soft-censoring that the Seuss will.
to be clear, it isn't the publisher who is pulling these books. it's seuss's estate, the owner of the rights. it might seem arbitrary, but they have every right to be arbitrary. i assume, given seuss's legacy, that this wasn't done lightly.
Sure, sorry- obviously the estate owns the rights; the thrust of the point still stands.
TBH I'm even less comfortable with a random heir making decisions like these according to their whims. If Hemingway's estate wanted to yank all of his work from the public I presume that they could, but that doesn't make it right except in the libertarian-undergrad "That's the rules" sense.
triumph of the will really? it was intended as propaganda, has historical interest as such and is viewed as such. it accurately reflected the values of those who underwrote it, which are known to its audience. it was not a children's movie. i'm guessing birth of a nation and mein kampf are available too and rightly so.
"I presume that they could, but that doesn't make it right except in the libertarian-undergrad "That's the rules" sense."
i guess you need to have the sensibilities of a libertarian undergrad to see my argument this way. i make my living as a writer. and as a photographer. my work is an extension of me. when a piece of work for whatever reason no longer represents me or my values i have the absolute right to revise, edit or kill it to the extent i am contractually able to. that is 100 percent my call, not yours, not sean hannity's or anyone else's.
this is not book burning. this is not government censorship. no homes are being raided for "illicit" copies. this is not libraries tossing books because someone finds some passage offensive. it is the owner of the material itself deeming its own material problematic. if it were up to me, i'd find a less drastic solution, like having the offending image redrawn, but it's not my call.
as kevin points out these images are offensive enough that fox won't even show them. if you're the seuss estate, you want them out there representing seuss? in the 21st century?
Yup.
We see artists & creators all the time who look back on their early work, decide it doesn't fit with their current disposition politically/ideologically/culturally, & ask it taken out of print. Just look at notable staff owner of Defector-dot-com, science fiction novelist, SFGate opinion writer, & robe aficionado* Drew Magary: his first book, from 2007, "Men with Balls" -- already out of print. It wasn't that longago, but already, it is oppositional to his newfound Bern It All Down stance & fatherhood of a daughter, so it must be gone. Whatever value seeing it stacked next to The Hike & how its themes carry over, sometimes surprisingly, to later Magaryan oeuvre is not to be pursued. At all.
*The ongoing terrycloth fetishism is evidence of Mr. Magary achieving his final, middleaged, trustfundkid form.
They'll eventually be in the public domain, as they should, but yeah it's fake pearl clutching over nothing.
Probably they will be back. It's not crazy for the owner to take "problematic", lesser selling books out of circulation. Say, let them go a few years, let the old copies fade away from book stores, disappear in library sales, etc. Quietly edit out the problem lines and edit in new pictures (wouldn't be the first time the Seuss estate has done that), and then re-release cleaned up ones, oh, 5 or so years down the line.
They're not going to let something like the Lorax or the Grinch go fallow, but these? Simply seems like reasonable marketing to me. And I've got nothing against that. Once they go public domain, anyone can do what they want with the originals. In the meantime, the owners have the right to do whatever they think is in their best business interests.
Shouldn't the liberal response here be obvious. We applaud the Seuss foundation for removing books they think are racist. We also are amused that conservatives are so against private property and capitalism that they oppose a family from making decisions about how they wish to use their property.
I believe there are many Fox News viewers who wouldn't cringe at the sight of racially offensive cartoon drawings. They would laugh. There must be some other reason Fox isn't showing them.
Discovery in Dominion suit.
Those people didn't cringe or bat an eye at anything that trump & his supporters in all categories said & did, so you must be right. Still, it's not as though the Seuss heirs would sue over use of the same images being shown here & elsewhere.
We are ACME! Only the modern conservative movement would fill the best-seller lists with Dr. Seuss books because it's upset that the publisher of Dr. Seuss books has decided not to publish certain titles. It's a reverse boycott! That'll show 'em.
In the conservative mind, though, anything is legit if they believe it goes against liberal sensibilities. They make dumb their own brand because liberals think of themselves as smart.
Yeah, about that rocket I bought to help me catch the road runner....
One the most malignant elements of conservative media is that they don't seem to have any real ideological commitment to honesty or openness in their reporting. They basically just don't do investigative reporting anymore unless it's something they can bash liberals with, and feel no requirement at all to report something that might contradict the narrative they're pushing. At least mainstream newspapers publish corrections and have fact checkers.
Yeah, my Fox News-watching mom (*sigh*) was going on about this. "How can anyone say they're racist? They're just fantastical creatures!" Apparently she was imagining someone was saying The Grinch was racist or something. I went home and googled the images, and yup, super racist.
It's pretty much guaranteed that every time I talk to her, if she brings up anything topical, it will be factually wrong. Thanks, Fox.
Most of the characters created by Seuss are exaggerations of some form. Usually only children are drawn without distortion of some type. When I was child, and I had a subscription to receive these books, I worried about waking up and living in a Seuss universe where I was the only 'normal' looking character. The Cat in the Hat character was created to represent a trouble maker. The Grinch a misanthrope. These are caricatures of people, although not Africans or African Americans. There was probably no way to caricature people from Africa without the stigmatizing racist tropes so common in America. Would Fox News viewers really be offended them?
This is nuts.
How can a white cartoonist draw people from Africa without relying on "racist tropes?"
Also, the part Kevin leaves out:
The same folks worried about Seuss said Curious George relied on "racist tropes" because a white guy went to Africa and brought home a monkey.
"The Sneetches" was labeled dehumanizing because it encouraged color blind acceptance of people.
Did you really ask how a colonial adoption might be racist?
And say the Sneetches are dehumanizing for accepting differences?
Your lack of citations is notable.
Fortunately for the Man in the Yellow Hat, Chinese/Korean/Miscellaneous Other East Asian adoption is prevalent enough on right & left that neither side will take on the insidious origins of George's mischief.
I see the Dr. Seuss book “The Seven Lady Godivas” is out of print too. No doubt a product of “cancel culture”. Fox should get right on it and show the cover of the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Lady-Godivas-Concerning-Historys/dp/0394562690/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DZ80A99I49OK&dchild=1&keywords=the+seven+lady+godivas+by+dr.+seuss&qid=1614882927&sprefix=The+seven+lady%2Caps%2C231&sr=8-1
"rail endlessly and let their audience assume"
That's the rightwing way. Don't show; just judge and let the viewer assume you're telling the truth. Don't quote; just condemn and let the reader think you're not lying.
It's standard practice in The Librul Meedia to actually provide quotes, long form where needed, before or after providing their analysis. Not so in Con-World! So Fox's seuss-wash is SOP.
I thought it was incredibly distasteful to come out with a full-scale "RACIST!!" denunciation of the Good Doctor ... on his birthday. That said, why would anyone presume that the creatures he portrayed were even meant to be human?
Charicatures of non-white people is a real minefield. There's a humorous series of non-fiction books called "You wouldn't to be..." While adding the ones with white people is easy to do in the school library, the non-white titles are just too likely to cause offense. One of the privileges of whiteness is being able to be made fun of.
https://www.amazon.com/you-wouldnt-want-be-series/s?k=you+wouldn%27t+want+to+be+series
For sure, white ethnic groups in America are used to caricatures of various European flavors and have little or no lived experience that would make them sensitive about such portrayals. That could be why some white people aren't sure why the African cartoon depictions are so terrible.
Bingo! I think you've got it.
In a related matter, I was shocked and saddened way back in the 1960s to learn that all those different cultural flavors, the English, the Scottish, the Irish, the Germans, the Swedes, the Jews (always in a class by themselves), the French, the Russians ... and not to mention the regionally different parts of America -- well, they were all just White Men. No difference at all among 'em. Pure bland vanilla oppression, period.
I know when the pendulum swings, it's gotta hit the extremes -- but seriously, the truth is probably somewhere closer to the middle.
Now what would you want them to cover. The failure of TX with the ice storm (Winter is Coming)? The success Joe has had it cleaning up the vaccination mess? The "big lie" they are still promoting? CDC guidelines? By golly, we need days of Dr. Seuss analysis.
If for no other reason than to prove global climate change is a hoax, FOXnews should be covering the cold snap in the Lone Star.
That picture's plenty racist, but it's nothing compared his one demonizing the Japanese:
https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/boingboing/original/4X/7/c/c/7cc9af02e48dbf1d5de31afcf2344fd9d97eb5db.jpeg
(Of course this isn't in a now-canceled kid's book but it can't be left out of discussions of Geisel's racism.)
Makes me very glad to have never been exposed to any of his books.
The one shown by KD made me think of the bloated bellies of African children's bloated bellies due to kwashkior.
One cartoon,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss#World_War_II%E2%80%93era_work
a view shared exactly by the majority of the US population at that time.
Will you condemn and discard everything all those people did as contaminated and worthless?
Who said we should?
But why should we keep the racist characatures?
Now explain the objections to Curious George and The Sneetches.
Whose?
Have you ever gone back and read the original Curious George book? It's terrifying! White man comes to the Jungle, lures in tiny baby monkey with a banana, scoops him up in a net, boxes him, and brings him home to put on display. No wonder the little bugger goes "ape shit" in all the books. He's kidnapped and enslaved as a child, all for the amusement of the Colonial Invader.
An image is racist when it's intention is general insult, understood directly or indirectly by it's presentation. This is never true of Dr. Seuss where at most he is guilty of burlesque.
It's the context of our day that sees it as bad taste, as opposed to old taste. If you find it gauche, maybe Dr. Seuss is just getting old altogether.
As Kevin said yesterday, I don't see anything wrong with re-drawing the pages or just dropping them except that in doing that some clever person will inevitably draw attention to it and make the gesture meaningless.
In any event, out of print doesn't mean gone forever.
I believe you give Fox viewers too much credit. Some might realize how abhorrent these pictures are. The majority? I doubt very much.
"This is so obviously offensive by today's standards that even the whitest Fox News viewer would cringe at seeing it."
You think so?
I wouldn't call it being shy, but being coy. By not showing, they can titillate, let the viewer's imagination assume the worst (in that the images aren't all that offensive and the estate is being overly sensitive, or get all excited about even more repugnant stuff that they imagine he drew).
If Fox were to show the images, then there would be less room for outrage to grow, so they tease and insinuate. It's the carnival barker approach, really.