No Respect

I haven't seen a movie in a theater for quite some time, but recently I went to see The Simpsons Movie. I was treated to some trailers for upcoming films, and I have to say that someone needs to dismantle every studio that uses CGI. The previews in question were for Alvin and the Chipmunks and Horton Hears a Who.

Every child for generations has read or had read to them Horton Hears a Who. Dr. Seuss's elegant rhymes and gentle morality is perfect as it is. It is timeless, precisely as literature should be.

But here we are with Jim Carrey as Horton and Steve Carell as one of the Whos, wisecracking and smarmy, totally undermining the cleverness of the literature on which it is based. Oh, let's update it for our ever-so-hip children, I'm sure they were thinking.

Hip. Yeah.

I am still in mourning for my defaced Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum. In my childhood, they inspired a sense of hushed awe. You would enter the dark hall, with only a few other people scattered around, an aging guard there to answer any questions you might have. You felt as if you were in the presence of something important. You had respect for greatness. The people who found these skeletons, who had the knowledge of how to reconstruct them, who determined what they ate, how they lived, based on these prehistoric bones.

Now the place is raucous and "kid-friendly". See, it's all about interaction. Because greatness and knowledge is considered now to be boring.

The same for these movies. Make it easy for the kids to relate. Bring in smart-assed remarks (see Underdog). Because heaven forbid any child feels as I did in my youth; that some human beings are great for their achievements, as Dr. Seuss was.

All of this is the equivalent of some snotty-nosed teenager spraying graffiti on Michaelangelo's David in the name of making it "relevant". In reality, it's making everything unimportant.

I'm mourning still.