Every movie has a message. Even "Horton Hears A Who." My daughter and I went back to the movie theater in 2008 for a second helping. However, I failed to see it's existential meaning both times. How I could have missed its symbolism is beyond me now. It wasn't until one "Dark Night of the Soul" that I suddenly realized what "Horton Hears A Who" was all about.
Dark Night of the Soul
Dark Night of the Soul is the title of a poem written in the 16th-century by a Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross. The poem describes the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. Like Saint John, every soul will have its dark night. Some, like those suffering with depression, experience more dark nights than others. The late Sylvia Browne, world-famous psychic said in her book, Souls Perfection (2000), that if we simply survive an earthly incarnation, we have done something heroic! She believes we choose to come down to Earth before we are born in order to experience certain trials and to learn from them. To Sylvia, Earth is a sort of school of hard knocks – the soul's “boot camp” if you will. The message from both these authors, a saint and a psychic, is that life is no cake walk. Or remember that Buddha said it, and Christ also demonstrated it, that here on Earth, they'll crucify you every time (metaphorically speaking). This is not an "easy" planet to be born into. Think about it-we arrive with a cold slap on the butt, and exit as they throw dirt in our face! By now, you must be thinking, "Wow, Nina must have been having a really bad night!" The point is: we've all experienced them. Moments when life which seemed impossibly cruel, a sadistic joke. When we grieved with no answers because life seemed both random and harsh. Moments when you've said to yourself, or said to God, "What's the use? What's all the suffering for?" These dark nights of despair leave us questioning the meaning of our existence. Strangely, it's not until we experience dark nights like these that we begin to notice the light.
The Light At The End of the Tunnel
You've heard the saying, "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel"? The light, in this case, looks brighter because of the darkness around it. The polarity of life is the breadth, depth and meaning of it. Not until we have seen our shadow can we appreciate our light. In Jungian psychology, the shadow or shadow self is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts (Wikipedia.com). Simply, the contrast between darkness (unknowing) and light (knowing) defines our living, giving it meaning and significance. The cool drink is cooler on a hot Summer's day. The explosion into laughter, orgasm or grief is relieving, and wouldn't be cathartic without the precipitous state of withholding. We humans experience life as meaningful because of it's polarities. The Dark Night of the Soul, though painful, enables us to savor and appreciate the morning's bright dawn. The meaning of "Horton Hears A Who" broke upon my mind two years after I saw it when suddenly, in the foreground of my mind, the Dr. Seuss-ish characters seemed less cartoonish and surprisingly spiritual. It seemed to me what was originally a touching child's story was offering a profoundly adult lesson that I had missed the first, and even second time around.
We Are Here!
During my "Dark Night of the Soul," as I pondered why there has to be so much such suffering, I sent out a question, or maybe it was a prayer, but it sounded like this: "Do you know we are here?" As I did, the story line of Horton Hears A Who came rushing back to me. Do you recall how the Whos in Who-ville had, in desperate distress, trumpeted a similar message to the Universe: "We are here, we are here, we are here!" Suddenly, I was feeling as small as a Who. A single voice in a minuscule colony who lived on the pin-point sized dot on the head of a dandelion. I wondered if God was like Horton, a goofy but kindly-hearted elephant, living a carefree and blissful existence, caught unawares by the tiny sound of the Whos urgent message: "We are here! We are here! We are here!" I thought: if there is a God, I hope He is a big fellow with a soft heart, like Horton. I don't even care if He is goofy like Horton. I also thought about how, even in Horton's world, there was an antagonist; a disparaging, vengeful voice (played by Carol Burnett). And I smiled all over again when I thought about the yellow puffball named Katy, our favorite character in the film, whose one-liner delighted my daughter and I: "In my world, everybody eats rainbows, and poops butterflys." In Horton's world, as in our world, there are agonists, antagonists, and the clueless, quirky souls, too. I thought, if Horton represents God, and we humans represent the Whos, so small, seemingly insignificant and randomly falling through space, what's the message of the film?
A Person Is A Person, No Matter How Small
Throughout the movie, Horton kept repeating a mantra which kept him "saving" Who-ville from destruction. It was: "A person is a person, no matter how small." What I believe he meant was: regardless of the immense size difference between Horton and the Whos, the Whos were as important to Horton as he was. He couldn't let them perish because he had the power to save them. What the audience found endearing about Horton was how much he valued life. He held it sacred. Even life that was so minuscule by comparison that he couldn't even see it, and had to strain to hear it. If there is a God, I hope in this regard, He is like Horton. In our Dark Nights of the Soul, I believe we are sending out a message, whether it is whispered in a prayer, a thought, or shouted from the rooftops: "I am important, so don't forget about me!" The existential message I finally saw in "Horton Hears A Who" was: Everyone matters, no matter how small. If you believe there is a God, or a Higher Power, or whatever you want to call it, then allow this simple child's movie to remind you, as it did me, that the Creator, like Horton, hears us, and is moved to help us. And if you are an atheist, and do not believe, then consider the movie's theme anyhow: we are all equals, and therefore, everyone is worthy of compassion. Regardless of your spiritual leaning, there was a hidden message for you in "Horton Hears A Who," and I wanted to share it with you.
References:
(2011). Dark night of the soul. Wikipedia.com. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on July 22, 2011: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul#Poem_and_treatise_by_Saint_John_of_the_Cross
Browne, S. (2000). Souls Perfection. Hay House, Inc.
Shadow (psychology). (2011). Wikipedia.com. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on July 22, 2011:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_%28psychology%29
Schultz, D.P. and Schultz, S.E. (2009). Theories of Personality. Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning.
your blogs are filling...like a "mid-night" snack!!
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