As expected, conservatives have not taken kindly to the new movie The Lorax, based on the Dr. Seuss book on how avarice can harm the environment. The Media Research Center warned it will turn children into “little eco-warriors” and Lou Dobbs of Fox News blasted the film for “trying to indoctrinate our children” by “demonizing the so-called 1% and espousing the virtue of green energy policies.” The conservative group Movieguide said that while there is no obscene language, violence, sex or nudity in The Lorax, it still “warrants strong caution” because of its “strong politically correct environmentalist content that’s also anti-capitalist.” Cal Beisner even said that the Environmental Protection Agency’s promotion of the film represents an unconstitutional “violation of the separation of church and state.”
Yesterday on The Steve Deace Show, Deace hosted WorldNetDaily’s Drew Zahn to discuss his review of The Lorax.
The two agreed that The Lorax is indeed left-wing “propaganda” and believe conservatives should have not only a political but also a spiritual response. Zahn claimed that the entertainment industry has been “co-opted” by “truly evil forces” and “forces of darkness,” which leads to the production of films like The Lorax. He said that people need to reclaim the field of the arts from the evil forces and return it to its godly foundations.
Deace: Now you’ve seen the movie Lorax?
Zahn: Yes.
Deace: I haven’t seen it yet, it looks to me however like pure, liberal, environmental propaganda, is it?
Zahn: If you read the book you’ll recognize that right off the bat and the movie follows that theme word for word. Yes, it is anti-capitalist, it is ‘big business is bad, the hunt for money is bad, it destroys the trees and by all means someone must stand up for speak for the trees, will you too please’?
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Deace: So Drew, why don’t we just take these tactics of the left that they use in pop culture, why don’t we just do the exact same thing to create good entertainment that does the same thing with our message that they do with there’s, why not just do that?
Zahn: You know what, I’m glad you gave me the chance to think about that over the commercial break because I’m going to reject the premise of your question altogether. Your question assumes that the left—or I’m going to say that truly evil forces in the world have created this and shouldn’t we co-opt it? I’m going to say no it’s the other way around. God created the arts, the creative spirit, and it is the forces of darkness that have co-opted it and what we need to do is take it back.
Deace: We got to reclaim it, not co-opt it, we got to reclaim it.
Zahn: Exactly.
