Geisel 101

[ltmurnau]

It has been brought to my attention that I have missed the 101st birthday of Theodore Geisel, also known as "Dr. Seuss".

Not many people know of the work this gentle, kind man (who never actually had any children of his own and reportedly did not like having the actual article around him) did for the war effort. Here are some samples:





More to be found at http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/.

Happy fucking birthday, Dr. T.

Comments

[jodymeme.livejournal.com]

yikes! i've seen a lot of his war propaganda stuff before, but not that cartoon on the bottom. ouch. it looks like he supported internment. probably the a-bomb, too.

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

Not that it excuses him, but someone once reminded me that racism was more acceptable in those days.

Speaking of which; I tried twice to reply to that comment you left me about the British Riefenstahl commentary. I am almost certain the commentator was British. The film was filmed in four languages for immediate release, also that the reason I posted that was to point out was that German intolerance was not unique at the time, as you said, that just somehow got lost in the process.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Of course racism was more acceptable in those days. What frosts me is that this side of "Dr. Suess" was so assiduously swept aside, though never actually denied, during his time on earth. Even more hypocritical is a series of anti-racist cartoons featured on that website cited above, where he seems to be saying "we should be nicer to coloured people because it helps the war effort."

But perhaps the greatest atrocity of all is the fact that Jim Carrey and Mike Myers disported themselves so shamefully on the corpse of his two best known works, violating every orifice!

Livejournal is really gibbled these days. I've lost I don't know how many comments in the past week or two.

i think it explains a bit, really.

[tartarisaws.livejournal.com]

surely it's hypocritical, but I think that racism wasn't only more acceptable in those days -- it was scarcely identifiable! My impresion is that people didn't stop to think about such things. You lashed out at japs if they pissed you off, and for any reason -- the fact that they had those slanty eyes was enough to hate. blacks weren't to be trusted, but if they could further the war effort, then, well they were better than those pesky japs! and this sort of behavior (while not universal, of course), went on and on, cyclically. every minority seemed to resent every other minority, especially when presenting themselves to the dominant white culture for acceptance. within the white culture, plenty of races didn't trust each other, and if you boil it down, people to this day mainly are inclined to trust family members and locals. We've seen radical lessening of these tendencies, but hopefully our children will laugh at us. with regards to the same issues -- we have a long way to go.

Does this make me want to hate Dr. Seuss comics? Not really. It just makes me doubly aware that, just as good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things. Which Geisel was, I don't really claim to know, but you can't trust an artist (or member of any occupation) based on one of his works, that's for sure.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Of course racism was more acceptable in those days. What frosts me is that this side of "Dr. Suess" was so assiduously swept aside, though never actually denied, during his time on earth. Even more hypocritical is a series of anti-racist cartoons featured on that website cited above, where he seems to be saying "we should be nicer to coloured people because it helps the war effort."

But perhaps the greatest atrocity of all is the fact that Jim Carrey and Mike Myers disported themselves so shamefully on the corpse of his two best known works, violating every orifice!

Livejournal is really gibbled these days. I've lost I don't know how many comments in the past week or two.

[victriviaqueen.livejournal.com]

You must borrow "The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss" (ND237 S46A4 1995). It shows another side again -- the fact he was also a perv.

[iberia.livejournal.com]

Don't be too harsh, now. He was a product of his times, just like we all are. If he hadn't wrote those cartoons, would it have made a difference? I say no...in fact, some other cartoonist would have come along and taken the fat government check and done it anyways.

bzzzt!

[tartarisaws.livejournal.com]

the difference would be, it wouldn't be his fucking name all over them! ...if that doesn't mean anything to you, then please never try to sell me anything! on the other hand, I do wonder whether the japs were star-bellied sneetches... or ones with none upon thars...

[xplodingsilence.livejournal.com]

It was a different time then. You don't want to know which names they gave people of ethnic minorities in this part of the world at that time.

I love Dr. Seuss. We have a lot of books at our Kindergarten of him and the kids love them (nothing racist of course!!!).