joan is the lorax

Illumination's The Lorax is one of the most interesting boring movies out there. It's boring in the sense that there isn't much in the movie of any depth, but it's interesting because there almost was. Some of you may already know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't: You can find on streaming services a number of cut tracks from The Lorax, and among them is a song called "Biggering". It seemingly was an early version of the annoyingly forgettable "How Bad Can I Be?", and even a cursory listen will immediately show a stark contrast between the two. "How Bad Can I Be?" is the Onceler being a typical moustache-twirling villain, absolving himself of guilt for cutting down a few trees while also destroying an entire ecosystem. This portrayal still leaves him as the "good guy" who's just in denial about how bad everything he's doing is, which facilitates his turn back to good before they go defeat the real evil gazzilionare.

"Biggering", on the other hand, is significantly more nuanced. It includes in the middle of the song a spoken word segment from the Lorax about how the Onceler's greed comes from pride, and how empty it leaves you. Additionally, the Onceler is far more focused on all the stuff he wants rather than being in self-denial about how bad anything he's doing is. The metaphor of "survival of the fittest" is also taken even further, with the Onceler calling a company an animal ". . .struggling and fighting just to keep itself alive", which provides his only justification for a lack of moral culpability. One final kicker, the last to last line in "How Bad Can I Be?" is, "who cares if a few trees are dying?". What was the equivalent line in "Biggering"? "Who cares if a few things are dying / I don't want to see you crying".

Clearly, "Biggering" was neutered completely before it made it to the finished movie, and the reason why is immediately clear: It's an Illumination movie. It's very difficult to make a cutting critique of big business capitalism when Universal (who owns Illumination) is writing your cheques. We have no way of knowing how early in production the shift happened, but the existence of "Biggering" implies to me that there at one point was an idea for a Lorax movie which expanded the ideas of the original book to include a criticism of blind consumerism. Instead, we got a bland children's movie about how if you oust the big bad then everyone else will just be good and make wise choices. It's a lot easier for a big company who makes money off cheap movies and merchandising to sell a narrative about a big evil guy than it is to sell one about intentional and ethical consumption.

I got a similar feeling in the wake of watching Joan Is Awful, an episode of Dark Mirror. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there at one point was an interesting critique of how we consume media and the incentives inherent in the streaming service model in here somewhere, but that's not what we got. Instead, we got a bland episode about a big bad who says "drat, foiled again" before letting our heroes ride off into the sunset. The primary difference between this and The Lorax is that The Lorax presented itself as a harmless children's movie, while Dark Mirror had an air of pseudo-intellectualism to it that makes my skin crawl. There is an argument that the former is worse and/or a greater loss, but I personally have a stronger distaste for the latter.

Allow me to elaborate (and keep in mind, here be spoilers): When Joan finds out her phone is recording her every move to broadcast shortly afterwards, the only solution that is attempted is "let's go kill big computer". None of her friends, family, or loved ones even consider not watching the show out of respect for her privacy, nobody thinks that maybe she should leave her phone in the car when she gets home from work, nobody decides to cancel their subscription, the only solution is "stop big bad". The end consumer's role in this entire affair is completely ignored, and there is an underpinning assumption that you must consume content and have your phone on you at all times. Don't worry dear Netflix viewer, you can breath easy knowing that you have no part in this destructive cycle and the problem is in some computer off somewhere that someone should probably take and axe to at some point. Stay on the couch, cuddle your iPhone, and keep consuming media telling you how clever you are.

Now, let it be said that I don't believe in big conspiracies. I don't think that somewhere in some boardroom people sat down and decided that they were going to make a piece of streaming service propaganda, it just came out that way due to a number of sour incentive structures. What makes my blood boil is that, after they axe the computer, everything is lovely. Joan get's a slap on the wrist and is allowed to open her coffee shop and become besties with a famous actress, and Not-flix was never heard from again. If you'll forgive me using a slightly insensitive metaphor, this is similar to saying that if you just killed Hitler, then the Jews and Nazis would suddenly start holding hands and singing Kumbaya. No blame placed on anyone outside of the one big guy at the top, and no nuanced conversation about how these systems got here to begin with.

Now, to preempt a point I feel I might see, weather or not this is intentional self-commentary on the part of the show is completely irrelevant. The creators took Netflix money to make a Netflix show, which bars them from moral grandstanding about the ethics of streaming services. I don't have a problem with the show-runners making a living, I'm just saying you don't get to lecture the rest of us while still profiting from the system you're "opposing". To be clear: I don't think that's what the show was doing. Frankly, between what I've discussed here and the unfinished threads regarding the ethics of AI sentience, predatory terms and conditions, content feeding off negativity, and actor exploitation due to deepfakes, I think it was just a poorly written episode of television. Hanlon's razor says to not attribute to malice to that which is aptly explained by incompetence, and I absolutely think that applies here. Better yet is Douglas Hubbard's extension: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system."