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21 Muns posted:The issue is not that the film is not completely identical to the source material; the issue is that the film's additions to the source material put it at odds with that source material. (Indeed, the cartoon is also not identical to the book, and you don't see me complaining about it - it's not because its alterations to the book are merely smaller in scope, but because they are not alterations to the core of the story at all.) The book doesn't merely neglect to mention why the Grinch hates Christmas - it makes the bold moral claim that it doesn't matter. I don't care that the film's changes don't always contradict the content of the book, because they do always contradict the book's intent - if you retell an old fairy tale, and you don't change any of the details, but you merely add new details that reframe the story to flip its morality, then no one cares that the original fairy tale is still technically intact somewhere in there, you're still the Edgy Fairy Tale Reboot Guy that everyone laughs at. You continue to write in terms of "intent" and "the core" of the story being contradicted, but do not demonstrate how this contradiction occurs. Instead, you continually succumb to your own cynicism: You don't care that the film is fundamentally telling the same story about how "Christmas doesn't come from a store," because you are too busy laughing at even its most elementary attempts to make the story more nuanced. For instance: The film does not present the Whos as shallow, uncharitable people who insincerely celebrate Christmas to one-up each other. For one, you have to address what you mean by sincerity. We already understand that the Whos have lost sight of the spiritual foundation of ritual. This does not mean they are insincere when they decorate their houses, buy gifts for one another, bake goods and prepare food for a communal feast and festival. They compete with one another, but this is not the same as them lacking sincerity. There is such a thing as friendly competition. Those characters who are the most shallow and uncharitable are shown to be ones in positions of political power and economic privilege. They are a poor representative of the entire community, who may indeed be obsessed in the materialism of the holidays, but nonetheless are capable of intuitively understanding that for whatever material things they lose, they have not lost their capacity to love one another. The social problem that the Whos face has nothing to do with them exchanging gifts and competing with one another and being excited about the holidays. This preoccupation with the apparent 'depth' of culture is a misdirection from ideological critique. The Whos are not guilty of anything that any American small town isn't guilty of, and that's what makes the 2000 film so repulsive to fans of the book and cartoon. It's made too explicit that the problem is not simply 'bad people' who 'don't get it' because they're really mean and self-absorbed. The film adapts the book poetically, and comes to the much more significant conclusion that the problems it identifies with the Grinch are social problems, that they arise from how individuals interact with the symbolic order. The Grinch is just a Who. You would prefer that he remain a What, a dehumanized Other who exists only to be converted, and thus substantiate the apparent essence of the ritual.
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Dec 21, 2017 07:30
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Since we're talking about that movie in here, I might as well ask. I swear I remember the movie being called The Grinch when it came out, but now all I'm finding are posters/movie listings that say How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Am I totally misremembering?
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Dec 21, 2017 09:38
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In the Jim Carrey Grinch there is a hot lady who is all horned up for the Grinch.
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Dec 21, 2017 11:08
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Moon Atari posted:In the Jim Carrey Grinch there is a hot lady who is all horned up for the Grinch. and hell, who wouldn't be
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Dec 21, 2017 14:29
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Andorra posted:Since we're talking about that movie in here, I might as well ask. I swear I remember the movie being called The Grinch when it came out, but now all I'm finding are posters/movie listings that say How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Am I totally misremembering? Nah http://mandelaeffect.com/ Mechafunkzilla posted:and hell, who wouldn't be He did make that bitchin' steam punk angel for her tree. Dude's got a lot of points. And now I'm imagining Bob Seger's "Night Moves" but about the Grinch.
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Dec 21, 2017 15:11
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A multi-page longform Christmas derail of the cartoon thread about how the Grinch movie is great because it's an indictment of capitalism, written by a guy evidently operating under the belief the indictable things about capitalism are that people give gifts and play music. God bless us, every one
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Dec 21, 2017 17:01
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No one has written that How the Grinch Stole Christmas is an indictment of capitalism. I have written that the symbolic order of the story is capitalist. I have also already addressed that the problem of Who society is not that they give gifts and play music and such. I also have not called the film great. I have nominally praised it as a faithful adaptation of Geisel's story. That is what is being objected to, on the grounds that by daring to portray the Grinch as an oppressed Other, the film is cynical and undermines the moral of the original story which is that... one creep is responsible for everything bad? Again, this is a definition of cynicism which explicitly ignores the actual narrative of the movie, which is not that people are fundamentally self-interested, but that once they lose all their material possessions, they reveal themselves to be fundamentally social and united in love. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is just as relevant to this thread as any Disney live-action remake would be.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:30
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How The Grinch Stole My Virginity
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Dec 21, 2017 17:33
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The Ayshkerbundy posted:How The Grinch Stole My Virginity The Grinch actually represents toxic masculinity. He doesn't get killed at the end like he deserves because of male privilege. Whoville represents victims of sexual assault, and Dr. Seuss is telling them to shut up and take it with a smile.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:08
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Andorra posted:Since we're talking about that movie in here, I might as well ask. I swear I remember the movie being called The Grinch when it came out, but now all I'm finding are posters/movie listings that say How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Am I totally misremembering? The UK version of the film was simply titled "The Grinch". https://imgur.com/trxgz5T
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Dec 21, 2017 18:23
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I'm positive it was just "The Grinch" around when it released. If they tacked "How" and "Stole Christmas" onto the start and end (respectively) to match the naming of the book and animated special, it must've been after-the-fact.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:28
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I'm almost sure the movie had the full title, but advertisement just called it The Grinch.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:31
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Most people called it "The Grinch" for short anyway.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:36
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The Blu-ray release is actually retitled GRINCH. DIE. REPEAT.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:44
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Detective No. 27 posted:The Blu-ray release is actually retitled GRINCH. DIE. REPEAT. I prefer the original, All You Need is Grinch.
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Dec 21, 2017 19:01
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So yeah, it does seem like the film was originally marketed as "The Grinch," but the official title is the full thing. 
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Dec 21, 2017 19:06
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quote:The Grinch has been the best friend Christmas has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!
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Dec 21, 2017 19:55
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what does this analysis say about the only holiday movie that matters, Halloween is Grinch's Night
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Dec 21, 2017 20:32
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paradoxGentleman posted:what does this analysis say about the only holiday movie that matters, Halloween is Grinch's Night I haven't seen it, but apparently it's controversial among Dr. Seuss fans.  Man, Dr. Seuss fans are really dumb.
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Dec 21, 2017 23:09
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some of us just have respect for Grinchiverse canon 
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Dec 22, 2017 01:52
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Queen_Combat fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Dec 26, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 02:08
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:some of us just have respect for Grinchiverse canon the proper way to approach Halloween is Grinch Night, from this perspective, is that it's actually really lovely because it ignores the ending of How the Grinch Stole Christmas entirely, simply because We Need MORE GRINCH
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Dec 22, 2017 03:21
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The Grunch
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Dec 22, 2017 03:32
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Love that Gronch
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Dec 22, 2017 03:42
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:the proper way to approach Halloween is Grinch Night, from this perspective, is that it's actually really lovely because it ignores the ending of How the Grinch Stole Christmas entirely, simply because We Need MORE GRINCH IMO the most likely backstory isn't that it ignores the ending of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, it's that it was intended as a prequel but then they literally forgot what they were doing when they wrote Max's subplot.
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Dec 22, 2017 03:51
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The Granch, starring irrelevant people on Netflix
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Dec 22, 2017 03:51
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The Grench not sure what a Grench is but it sounds kinda dirty
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Dec 22, 2017 03:54
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21 Muns posted:IMO the most likely backstory isn't that it ignores the ending of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, it's that it was intended as a prequel but then they literally forgot what they were doing when they wrote Max's subplot. The most likely backstory is that there is no continuity. As with Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny, the Grinch and Max are merely 'character actors' whose misadventures are not connected in any narrative sense. Much like the relationship between How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who!, and Horton Hatches the Egg, the texts are not part of an ongoing serialized arc.
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Dec 22, 2017 04:05
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21 Muns posted:IMO the most likely backstory isn't that it ignores the ending of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, it's that it was intended as a prequel but then they literally forgot what they were doing when they wrote Max's subplot. In fact, there were actually 3 animated Grinch specials. The third one was a crossover with The Cat in the Hat which also ignored the ending of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
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Dec 22, 2017 04:10
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The Ayshkerbundy posted:The Grench Starring Dame Judy Grench
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Dec 22, 2017 04:14
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K. Waste posted:The most likely backstory is that there is no continuity. As with Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny, the Grinch and Max are merely 'character actors' whose misadventures are not connected in any narrative sense. Much like the relationship between How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who!, and Horton Hatches the Egg, the texts are not part of an ongoing serialized arc. Yeah, this is pretty reasonable too.
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Dec 22, 2017 04:19
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The Grinch has short-term memory loss, so he is doomed to a life of forgetting why everyone's happy and having to relearn it over and over again forever, like an inverse Groundhog Day. Which is one of many holidays he repeatedly stops understanding.
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Dec 22, 2017 04:32
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"Dr. Seuss, I love your stories, I just have one question, what happened to that kid after the end of Oh, the Places You'll Go?" "He died."
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Dec 22, 2017 04:45
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Halloween is Grinch Night is real good, y'all. Do yourselves a favor and head on over to youtube.
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Dec 22, 2017 05:03
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K. Waste posted:The most likely backstory is that there is no continuity. As with Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny, the Grinch and Max are merely 'character actors' whose misadventures are not connected in any narrative sense. Much like the relationship between How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who!, and Horton Hatches the Egg, the texts are not part of an ongoing serialized arc. the problem with this and Grinch Night is that the ending of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is genuinely poignant as all hell, and Grinch Night still undermines that by taking that approach. the Grinch has, in fact, learned nothing, will learn nothing, and needs to learn nothing, as he is just an actor playing a role; the "character actor" approach actively defuses poignancy by adding an extra layer of abstraction between character and audience.
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Dec 22, 2017 05:14
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:the problem with this and Grinch Night is that the ending of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is genuinely poignant as all hell, and Grinch Night still undermines that by taking that approach. the Grinch has, in fact, learned nothing, will learn nothing, and needs to learn nothing, as he is just an actor playing a role; the "character actor" approach actively defuses poignancy by adding an extra layer of abstraction between character and audience. You have to separate the fictional art from the fictional artist. The Grinch is just a regular fictional person trying to make a fictional living. Again, I would need to watch Grinch Night, but the work needs to be interpreted on its own terms. It is not beholden to a previous work, with which it explicitly shares no continuity. This is the crisis you observe among Dr. Seuss fans through the window of the Wiki. They require a breakdown of competing 'theories' over the chronological placement of a TV special made eleven years after the first special, where the conclusion is actually that we just have to wait for some future media to fill the plot holes. They do not actually like Dr. Seuss. His works are inherently insubstantial because beyond a certain threshold, he really is just some quack who likes writing nonsense poetry and drawing bizarre animals, and at any time he'll reuse characters with little regard for any pretense of realism or thematic continuity. He's not even a real doctor! The vulgarity of the text doesn't conform with the ideological fantasy that, like, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is this magic, transcendent, iconic modern parable. Now the Grinch is an anti-hero! It's almost like Geisel likes ghoulish things, that he can take-or-leave his status as a moral instructor. This actually makes perfect sense when you consider that How the Grinch Stole Christmas is straightforwardly about how "Christmas doesn't come from a store." Grinch Night can not actually undermine the moral of the original story, because the moral of the story was never contingent upon the indefinite continuity of a fictional person. The parable is about the conditional rejection of materialism, specifically consumerism, in order to embrace Christ. Grinch Night does not compromise this parable - it was already compromised by the medium and structures through which it was expressed. The best lesson that Geisel can give us is the same as Lewis Carroll, to embrace the irrational in order to give ourselves imaginary models of how we can live and act in the absence of conventional moral and ideological authority. The insistence on purifying and conforming these parables to a naive perception of 'the original' is a function of reactionary ideology.
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Dec 22, 2017 05:37
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Double-posting for Geisel art:        
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Dec 22, 2017 06:05
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My theory: there are actually multiple Grinches. They see referred to as "the Grinch" by their surrounding communities because they are not aware of Grinch society at large. This is backed up by the fact that, in "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in an Hat", the local Grinch's reflection tells "I think the time had come for thee to recite the Grinch's oath with me", which seems to imply that there is a dispersed but very real society of Grinches our there dedicated to being an asocial curmudgeon.
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Dec 22, 2017 13:02
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The Cat in the Hat deserves a Grinching.
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Dec 22, 2017 13:50
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paradoxGentleman posted:My theory: there are actually multiple Grinches. They see referred to as "the Grinch" by their surrounding communities because they are not aware of Grinch society at large. In the jim carrey grinch babies are born via baskets that float down from the sky, but this happens simultaneously with a who key party suggesting it is metaphorical. Although the grinch is both physically and behaviourally different to a who (even from birth he seems prone to aggression) he arrives in a basket along side other standard who babies; which, doing away with the metaphor, suggests he is born of who parentage. This implies that grinches are whos with some manner of genetic condition or birth defect, analogous to something like fragile x or prada-willi syndrome that also produces a characteristic physical profile and problems of emotional regulation. In this case calling them a grinch is probably a slur like calling someone a mongoloid or retard.
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Dec 22, 2017 14:31
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