Comparing Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas to Dr. Seuss' Grinch
Whether or not you consider Ron Howard's version of Dr Seuss's classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas comical, yet disgraceful, there's no ignoring the little green monster's reign over the box office. The movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey, was released in November of 2000, reaching a gross high of over $200 million in the U.S alone (The Numbers). However, I feel that this version has over exaggerated the original story, and I will back this up by showing many examples of how Dr. Seuss’s classic turned into a marketing, franchise frenzy.
Dr. Seuss's original fable is a simple story told with a great moral that criticizes the commercialization of Christmas. The original story features an “Ebenezer Scrooge” type creature that lives up the mountains outside "Whoville." The Grinch indulges himself in the annual ritual of spoiling everyone's festivities with a series of nasty pranks. This particular year however he plans to sabotage the holiday season by dressing as Santa Claus, clim...
It’s already Christmas time, and Christmas is due in less than a week, and everyone is excited. Hallmark started playing all of those Christmas movies that usually include a “hero”, sometimes being a range of things; A fireman, cop, and etc. But not everyone enjoys this time of year, although a lot of people do. There are two popular individual who come to mind, both of which are from famous stories. The main protagonists in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch are those two people. These characters hate Christmas with a passion, and are both horrible people, but there is a catch, which one of this Christmas Meanies are the worst of their bunch? Everyone has taken their sides by now, but The Grinch is one of the meanest of them all.
Some traditional stories are so influential, they are born again in modern-day books. Such as, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge lives in London in the 1800’s. He is selfish and greedy. His ex-partner comes to visit him as a ghost. He warns him that he will be visited by three spirits: The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present, and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Just like A Christmas Carol, How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, The Grinch is mean. He tries to steal the Who’s, from the imaginary town of Whoville, Christmas spirit and happiness. Cindy Lou Who helps The Grinch become a better person. And of course, The Grinch’s dog, Max, tags along.
Just like the play, Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in the story. He is a mean, cold-hearted man that has no Christmas spirit whatsoever. All that Scrooge cares about and will ever care about is his wealth until he is taken on a journey. He is lead by 3 ghosts of his past, present, and future as he was in the play. These ghosts show him what Christmas spirit is and try to force it upon him. All of this finally hits him once he is taken to the future and witnesses his own grave. Scrooge pleads for a second chance to change his bad ways. Once he wakes up in his bedroom after all of this craziness, he jumps for joy and makes many new friends while mending with some old friends. He fixes many of his wrongs and lives out the rest of his life as a happier, friendlier, and a generous
The following paper compares a popular short films character, The Grinch, of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The reason such a comparison seems apt is that the Grinch seems to have all a “man” could want, but is nonetheless unhappy and miserable. Although his material needs have been met, he lacks a sense of belonging, does not have true self-esteem, and has never come close to Maslow’s descriptions of self-actualization. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” shows the evolution of the Grinch from a miser and robber to a being of generosity and empathy. Using Maslow’s theory allows us to see the Grinch’s structure and development of personality, the psychopathology, therapeutic techniques, and the limitations
Spiers, H., & Bendor, D. (2014). Enhance, Delete, Incept: Manipulating hippocampus-dependent memories. Brain Research Bulletin,
The four films in theme four are all different types of movies, however, they all somehow presented one same theme: over-consumption, and the main message that all those four films tried to deliver is that because human-beings over-consumed the limited resources just in order to live more comfortably, they produced a large amount of trash on earth and then drop them carelessly. If we continued doing that and make no attempt to correct their own mistakes, we will eventually destroy our homeland and pay for that. The over-consumption and be reflected in different forms, for example, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, people in town buy similar gifts over and over again, and then abandoned them on the mountain when they were still useful; in Wall-E, the earth was out of resources and green plants, and it was already covered by trash; and in The Lorax, people cutting down all the trees just in order to produce a material called Thneeds. The environment in these movies were already being destroyed, usually the planet is
The story of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss at first glance is nothing more than a story about a grinch and his plan for Christmas, but if you criticize it under a different school of thought like Marxism this story's theme is very different. One way the theme of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” changes when criticized though marxism is the seeing of a class system in the different characters. In this story the Grinch is hated by all the Whos and is seen as the lowest class while the Whos are the upper class ruling over the Grinch. In marxism it’s believed that there will always be conflict between the social class and the oppressed will revolt eventually, and this is exactly what happened with the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.
Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas directed by Ron Howard, came out on November 8, 2000. This children’s literature Christmas movie happens to tell a valuable story. Although, it may seem a little intmidating for children, it all goes into the wonderful meaning of this film. The original How the Grinch Stole Christmas came out in 1966. Ron Howard did his best to make a magical remake. I recommend that all families watch this movie during the holiday season to remind themselves of the true meaning of Christmas.
The Grinch is an individual, who is bitter and lives in a cave on the snowy Mount Crumpits, which is 10,000 feet tall and north of Whoville town. The Grinch age is unknown, however looks to be about in his mid-40s and is unemployed. Thus, results in him spending a lot of time alone in his cave with his dog, Max, as his social companion. At any rate, the Grinch faced many issues when he was younger, causing his current behavior, where he was abandoned as a child, and made fun of because of his look and horrendous appearance at school and as a way to cope he decided to run away. The Grinch behavior shows signs of depression, aggression, and irritation though out a large sum of the movie. In that case, the kid that use to make fun of
Memory is the mental process of retaining and retrieving information such as facts, events, and experiences. Memory is not always accurate (Hunt, 2004). Memory errors are common and natural; they are the result of normal cognitive processes of comprehension and perception, which can cause interference about incoming information. There are two errors of remembering; forgetting an event that occurred and remember an event that never occurred or remembering it in a way different from how it occurred. Memories can be distorted, and one may have no awareness that the memory is distorted. This is false memory (Roediger, 2002).
Charles dickens classic novella “A Christmas Carol” endorses the notion that “Generosity involves more than the giving of money, it’s also about the giving of one's goodwill, compassion, sympathy, empathy and kindness. By taking his seemingly irredeemable protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge on a supernatural journey, Dickens’ intends to convey to all of society the importance of generosity. He proclaims that generosity of the spirit defines Christmas, and goes a large way towards defining true humanity for him as well.
Memory is an important part of our lives. It fills us with comfort, warmth, and happiness when recalling a joyous event; it may also illicit feelings of anger, sadness, or discontent. Unfortunately, our memory is not as perfect as we may think. In fact, our memory is extremely malleable. Most people think memory acts as a tape recorder; you experience an event, and like a video tape, you can replay the event over and over in exact detail as it happened. This belief could not be further from the truth. In fact, our memory is constantly being shaped by external factors. It is reconstructed in the way we want to remember it. Memory does not act as a tape recorder; rather it is constructed by us and warped by time, emotions, and external forces. Such forces can include the input of family members and friends who want “get the facts straight” with their recollection of the event. This falsification effect can have severely damaging consequences, not only for the person undergoing the recollection, but also for those under attack for these recovered memories.
How do we know when or how to change ourselves as people? Sometimes, we all need a shove from something or someone to help us better ourselves. The most dominant factors are kindness, fear, and regret. These three things can make us willing to go through the hassle and hard work of breaking out of a habit, whether it be putting your feet on the couch, or your attitude.
...pporting details. At the conclusion of the article, the authors share their thoughts on how it might be virtually impossible to determine when a memory is true or false. I also like their willingness to continue the investigations despite how difficult it might be to obtain concrete answers.
A false memory is a type of memory that someone may remember but it did not happen. There has been evidence to show that under certain circumstances, younger children are not as susceptible to false memories as other children or adults; this concept is known as developmental reversals (McGuire, 2015). In this paper I plan to discuss what false memories are, how they may occur, and also I will discuss two studies surrounding false memories. I hope to educate the reader in learning more about false memories, a study that they have used, and how this can help further research in the future.