New film shows Dr. Seuss' political side

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- For most parents and kids, Dr. Seuss books are fairly innocuous adventures in learning to read, but a new documentary shows that author Theodor Geisel was a man of strong political opinions and deep convictions -- and he promoted them routinely in his work.

"The Political Dr. Seuss," by filmmaker Ron Lamothe, provides an account of Geisel's development as an artist and political philosopher -- including some controversial editorial cartoons he turned out during World War II, but with a primary focus on such classic children's books as "The Cat in the Hat," "Horton Hears a Who!" and "Yertle the Turtle."

Geisel's visual and literary style employed wild, surreal images and characters in outlandish stories that generally worked as parables. He called it "logical insanity."

In an interview with United Press International, Lamothe said the allegorical nature of Geisel's storytelling might not have been readily apparent to all readers.

"Parents reading these books to their children may or may not get the reference," he said. "The children -- except some of the more sophisticated children -- they won't get the allegorical reference, but what it does for them is develop a moral imagination."

Geisel's politics were left-liberal, and it is noteworthy that he was able to express his notions without much of a backlash during the 1950s, when liberalism in America was under assault.

"A lot of lefties found themselves writing for children then -- either writing texts for use in schools or writing children's books," said Lamothe. "They flew under the radar. No one was concerned because they were 'just writing children's books.'"

Some of Geisel's work as a cartoonist during World War II was anything but under the radar. "The Political Dr. Seuss" includes cartoons that feature offensively stereotypical depictions of Japanese-Americans, for example.

Judith Morgan -- co-author with her husband Neil Morgan of the 1995 Geisel biography "Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel" -- told UPI that Geisel's wartime perspective was not much different from that of other young Americans at the time.

"I think Ted was passionate and madder than some Americans in World War II," she said. "As he said, he was perhaps intemperate, but that's the way he felt at the time."

Lamothe said the harsh nature of some of Geisel's wartime cartooning showed how fiercely he supported the war against Nazism and fascism.

"He believed the war had to be fought, and he never changed his mind about that," he said. "I think there is some evidence of an evolution in terms of his thinking on this."

Lamothe said Geisel wrote "Horton Hears a Who!" -- an argument in favor of human equality -- after a post-war visit to Japan.

Morgan said that kind of sensitivity eventually led Geisel to make a change to "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," his first children's book. One of the book's characters was referred to as a "Chinaman," and Geisel had drawn him with a yellow face and a pigtail.

"As the times changed and people became more sensitive and politically correct," said Morgan, "they removed the pigtail and the yellow face and switched the word to 'Chinese man.'"

In any event, Lamothe said it was World War II, and then the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, that provided the main themes for Geisel's most popular books.

"He wanted to point out the folly of the arms race," said Lamothe. "I suspect if he were alive today he would do the same things and he would take up his pen and his paint brush and go after the current administration, perhaps."

Lamothe's film includes quite a bit of previously unseen footage and images -- including illustration drafts and rare TV appearances. It also has footage of Geisel's World War II-era work as part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps under Frank Capra -- including the "Private Snafu" training films he made with legendary animator Chuck Jones.

It also includes footage from his Oscar-winning documentary on post-war Japan, "Design for Death."

The film covers the phenomenal commercial success of Geisel's Dr. Seuss books and the merchandising that accompanied it. However, Lamothe kept the focus mainly on Geisel and his literary output.

"I think ultimately his legacy is going to be his books," he said. "They will be passed down from generation to generation. The merchandising of Dr. Seuss is going to run its course and it's going to fade away. The legacy will be literacy and moral imagination."

"The Political Dr. Seuss" is scheduled to air on PBS Oct. 26 (check local listings). The program's interactive companion Web site, pbs.org/thepoliticaldrseuss, will feature more information about the film, as well as links and resources relating to Geisel and his work.

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