Charette - The Lorax

 5/16/2024

Ellis Owens

Objective Review:

In the movie The Lorax (2012) at the timestamp 53:47 to 56:12 the Once-lar is performing the song How Bad Could I Possibly Be? He sings this song because he has just broken his promise to the Lorax about not cutting down trees to make thneeds. He thinks that cutting down a few trees won't hurt anyone. Within the chorus of the song he asks “How bad can I be, I am just doing what comes naturally, how bad can I be, I am just following my density?”. All the while all the animals and his family are dancing in the background. As the song progresses, you can see the Once-lar change from a humble-dressed man to a businessman. You can see the forest slowly going away while his factory gets bigger and bigger and his stacks of money get higher and higher. Unlike at the beginning of the song the animals seen at the end are sad and covered in gunk and smog. There are not many trees left and the once colorful forest is now a sad and empty place. The Once’lar does not notice that until the song is over and the last tree is cut down. He comes to the realization that there are no more trees, which means no more thneeds, and the collapse of this business. He finally comes to the realization that what he was doing was actually wrong when the Lorax explains to him what he has done and he leaves. The Once-lar is now alone and spends the rest of his life staring at the word “unless”. 

Reaction:

This Film was really nostalgic for me. I have many fond memories of my mom reading me Dr. Seuss books before bed when I was a kid. We owned close to every Dr. Seuss book and they were the same books she had when she was a kid. One of our favorites was The Lorax. When this movie came out in 2012 me and my mom went to the movie theaters to watch it, and I can honestly say this is one of my favorite movies. The storyline as well as the overall message has always spoken to me, I think reading this book as a kid is one of the main reasons why I am so passionate about nature and protecting it. 

Interpretation:

The main system that is present in The Lorax is the Thneed system, this system would be considered as an open system. A system in this context refers to "a group of interrelated and interacting elements that form a complex whole" (Montuori). This is exactly what the Thneed system is, it is a group of elements that work together to form the system. Now the Thneed system is considered open instead of closed because it takes Truffula Trees which are raw materials from the environment and manufactures them into Thneeds. If this were a closed system it would be isolated from its environment and use only materials that the system had already possessed. Due to the Thneed system being open, it requires inputs, throughputs as well as outputs, also known as feedback. Throughout the entire movie, the input for thneeds was Truffula trees, but due to the demand for thneeds as the movie goes on the quantity of truffula trees increases. Due to this, the throughputs within this system is the number of thneeds required to meet demands as well as the manufacturing plant where the thneeds are being produced. Now there are many outputs to this system, the main being the thneeds. That is what this system is producing. Another output also known as the feedback of this system is the deforestation that is the result of this system, this feedback is the start of another system, that system being O’Hare Air. Without trees to produce oxygen O’Hare sees this as a way to make his own system and make his own money. In hindsight, this is seen as positive feedback, due to the fact that “positive feedback’s deviation amplification takes it towards disequilibrium and change” (Montuori). O’Hare Air has negative feedback unlike the Thneed system, that is because O’Hare Air never changes, it stays the same, constantly selling Air and never deviating from that. In both these systems creativity is crucial, the Once-lar was creative in creating the Thneed, just as O’Hare was when he thought of the idea to sell air. “we can also claim that creativity, the bringing into being of novelty that is appropriate and valued, is the emergent property of a system at work” (Mclntyre). We know both these systems work because they started on creativity and they continue to build on creativity. 

Renaud, Chris, and Kyle Balda. The Lorax. Universal Pictures, 2012

Mclntyre, P. (2016). General systems theory and creativity. In P. McIntyre, J. Fulton, & E. Paton (Eds.), The creative system in action: Understanding cultural production and practice (pp. 13–26). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137509468_2

A Montuori (2011). Systems Approach

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