I tweet for the trees (The Lorax)

 Objective Review:

A key scene of the 2012 film of the Lorax is the reveal of Audrey’s accurately painted trees on the back of her family’s house, and her dream of having her own natural wonder, despite never having seen a tree herself. There’s a story there as well. It is the irony of her dream, which is not altruistic, but rather a selfish desire to own and enjoy. This motivation to bring back trees is seeded from the same selfish behavior that originally wiped the existence of trees from Thneedville.

A second key scene is when Ted’s mother says” “You’d rather have some dirty, messy, lump of wood that just sticks out of the ground and does what? What’s its purpose?” Thneedville has become an artificial world that has supplanted natural resources with manufactured products. Ted and his family are not unique in their blinders. This scene draws alarming parallels to our modern consumer culture. A viewer might wonder how someone could ever question the purpose of tree, only to look up and see their own LED tree lamp next to the television.

The catalyst for change is the third important element. It is the irrational and unpredictable nature of human behavior. All houses can look identical, and marketing can influence consumerism, but we cannot predict how one another’s lived experience may influence the decisions of others. As Mary Parker Follet’s law of the situation explains, our interactions with each other shape who we are (Stout & Love, 2015). In the case of the film, infatuation is a strong motivator, and the will to win Audrey’s favor impacts not only Ted’s course of action, but all other characters within the social system of Thneedville.

Reaction:

I grew up with the 1972 Lorax film, so the principal theme of the movie was anticipated. I could recall the sadness I felt as a child, and the warning to not be mindlessly wasteful and instead aspire to each become a Lorax. It was a lesson to be against the clear-cutting monsters destroying our rainforests.  I primarily associated the film as a first introduction to environmental concerns, and the concept of corporate greed and wastefulness. In short, it was inspiration to champion recycling efforts within the classroom, and be the stewards of our natural resources.

In this new 2012 film, anxiety and shame have replaced the duplicity of sadness and a childhood call to action. I see my own material laden life as a parallel. I have turned a blind eye to harm simply by ignoring the ramifications of extraction. My lifetime is marked by the normalcy of product creation. Humans buy bottled water because it’s healthier and tastes better, we have air purifiers that contribute to energy usage that pollutes our air. The distance from the source also separates us from their value. Eggs do not come from a chicken in my yard, they hail from mass producing poultry farms that create pandemics and reduce the animal to be a product, not a part of a natural ecosystem. The film leaves me with a sense of dread; even if trees are restored and the creation of things ceased, there will be, yet another human-created path of detrimental destruction under the guise of efficiency and progress.

Interpretation

System theory provides a mechanism to better understand how Thneedville became so naively artificial. The theory can be used to analyze how Thneedville shifted so deeply to manufactured commodities and why there is complete ignorance about the state of the land outside of their immediate environment. System theory demonstrates that slow, stable changes, can eventually create new epistemological understandings of society (Montuori, 2011). The development of nonsensical relationships with an artificial environment resulted from repetitious feedback within a system. The process is similar to Montuori’s (2011) reference of an individual not exercising. The analogy made that laziness leads to feeling out of shape, which leads to poor health and the further challenge to exercise part of a vicious cycle. The downfall to of Thneedville follows a similar pattern, however it is more social. Over time, the community has become so distant from organic reality, nature has become foreign. Ted’s mother not understanding why a real tree is wanted is a prime example. The outcome is grounded by how people interact with each other. As Stout and Love (2011) would describe, people are not just impacted by their world, but they also create it. Motivations like popularity and attraction have a significant impact on social systems. Take Ted’s infatuation of Audrey, it is a primary catalyst for an entire city’s change. As Montuori (2011) implies, a closed system cannot be independent from human behavior. Relationships are inherently dynamic.  

Considering systems (inputs, throughputs, and outputs) evolve based on feedback (Montuori, 2011), it can be assumed the villain, Mr. O’Hare, leveraged the appearance of a closed system, one without outside influence. By utilizing cultural artifacts such as myths and behavior norms (Shrivastava, 1985) Mr. O’Hare facilitates a  successful, continuous push of new products. These new products have been instrumental in hiding the negative environmental feedback loops of prior products. Take the scene of O’Hare pitching the idea for bottled air; the pair frame their argument that the pollution created during manufacturing of the product only increases its demand. By downplaying material sources and their destruction, Mr. O’Hare diverts attention away from the resource extraction perpetuating the negative feedback cycle.

Deep unease comes from the realization that this isn’t just a humorous and animated film. Needing bottled air due to pollution is frighteningly like having bottled water as a substitute for unsanitary local water. The Lorax may be a fictional story, but these overlapping systems are very, very real. It is this realization that the film fills me with dread. Our current level of consumerism will require major paradigm shifts to enact change.

References

Montuori, A. (2011). Systems Approach. Encyclopedia of Creativity, 414-421.

Shrivastava, P. (1985). Corporate Strategy. The Journal of Business Strategy, 5(3), 103-111.

Stout, M., & Love, J. M. (2015). Integrative Process: Follettian Thinkin from Ontology to Administration. Process Century ress.

Stout, M., & Staton, C. M. (2011). The Ontology of Process Philosophy in Follett’s Administrative Theory. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 33(2), 268–292.