Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced this week that it will no longer publish six of the iconic author/illustrator’s books because of racist and insensitive imagery.
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” the company said in a statement, adding, “Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families.”
The six books include “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo,” as well as lesser known titles “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.”
“Dr. Seuss Enterprises listened and took feedback from our audiences including teachers, academics and specialists in the field as part of our review process. We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles,” the company said.
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Books by Dr. Suess, who died in 1991 and whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, have been translated into dozens of languages, as well as in braille, and are sold in over 100 countries. In 2020, Geisel was named the #2 highest-paid dead celebrity when he raked in over $30 million in sales.
Of course, nobody is more upset about Dr. Seuss being “canceled” than conservatives. Many are blaming Joe Biden for the whole thing…
No $2,000 stimulus checks, but Biden did destroy women's sports, end thousands of union jobs, jack up the price of gas, and cancel Dr. Seuss!
— thebradfordfile (@thebradfordfile) March 3, 2021
Dr. Seuss is just a test run. If we let the left cancel Dr. Seuss, we’re next. Refuse to be canceled.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) March 3, 2021
How many Biden supporters signed up for banning Dr. Seuss?
— Emerald Robinson ?? (@EmeraldRobinson) March 3, 2021
Netflix was widely praised for “Cuties,” a French film that sexualized kids.
But now, Dr. Seuss books are too offensive to exist.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 3, 2021
Biden is responsible for banning Dr. Seuss. He didn’t understand them.
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) March 3, 2021
Perhaps my favorite part of the Phillip Bump piece at WaPo is the beginning, in which he admits that he loved "If I Ran The Zoo" as a kid. I assume it didn't make him a racist. Because no one can document a single case of somebody made more racist by a Dr. Seuss book. Not one.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
"I could not would not in in a dress! My genitals are quite a mess!"
-Green Eggs n' Tran.#DrSeuss— ?Anthony Zenhauser? (@thezencomic) March 3, 2021
I read my kids Dr Seuss books not Dr Jill books
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) March 3, 2021
We live in a society that embraces Cardi B and WAP, but somehow finds Dr. Seuss offensive.
— Trump's Black Grandson (@MrMichaelBurkes) March 3, 2021
Biden should have removed Dr. Fauci not Dr. Seuss. He has them mixed up.
— Jason D. Meister ?? (@jason_meister) March 3, 2021
(For the record: Joe Biden had absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, a private company, deciding to stop publishing six books it owns the copyrights to.)
But perhaps the person most incensed by all this is none other than Donald Trump Jr., who posted a four-minute video to his Rumble page ranting and raving about it.
“They’re canceling Dr. Seuss, guys!” he raged. “If Dr. Seuss is all of a sudden magically racist in 2021, why wasn’t he racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, every phobic imaginable under Barack Obama? Why is that?”
The ex-president’s son went on to say that people have “lost their minds” because they have “allowed the radical left to take over every aspect of our lives!”
“We’ve allowed cancel culture to dictate what we do and how we respond and how we deal with absolute lunacy,” he continued. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…”
My thoughts on the left trying to cancel Dr. Seuss… is there anything they won’t destroy? Oh and quote Obama about the topic. Please watch it and let me know your thoughts! https://t.co/biIGNPGAGC
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 3, 2021
This week, Dr. Seuss books skyrocketed on Amazon’s bestseller list. Used copies of “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” have been going for as much as $10,000 on Amazon Marketplace. Meanwhile, “The Cat’s Quizzer” is currently being sold on Ebay for $1,500, and “If I Ran the Zoo” is listed there for $1 million.
The item description reads:
BUY YOUR PIECE OF HISTORY!! THIS CLASSIC CHILDRENS BOOK WAS THANKFULLY JUST CANCELED TO PLEASE AND COMPLY WITH THE EVER GROWING OVER SENSITIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITY. BID NOW TO GET YOUR PIECE OF PRE CRY BABY AMERICAN HISTORY
WARNING!!!!
READ THIS BOOK AT YOUR OWN RISK/NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CRYING HISSY FITS
Ah, yes. Leave it to an angry conservative to bitch about “cancel culture” then try to make $1 million off it.
Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.
ProfessorDave
For the record. This is EXACTLY the same as Josh Hawley’s book contract being abrogated. Private corporations can do whatever they like with regard to cultural property, espcially cultural properties they own the copyright to.
Den
Certainly you don’t expect anybody on the right to actually understand that, do you?
Joshua333
Dr Seuss died 30 years ago, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care if his book is in print or not.
Monkey1
What a shame. I hope they don’t cancel “Smelly Nelly the Farting Bunny” by Giggly Wiggly Press. Yes this is a real book for kids (an Amazon best seller).
Description: Smelly Nelly dreams of stardom. He’s always wanted to rap, but he has a big problem… he can’t stop farting! Will this determined little bunny find a way to achieve his dreams? Or will his unfortunate farting problem stop him from becoming famous?
Instead of allowing parents to have a teaching moment for kids where they can talk about the descriptions of people in the “offensive” books, they decide to just ban it outright. BUT, I have a feeling there is no problem with a book where a bunny farts his way into stardom.
Charlie in Charge
There is quite a bit of misrepresentation about what is happening. Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, One Fish Two Fish are all safe.
Take a look at the sections in question for the six books that were deemed unsuitable. For example, If I Ran the Zoo features pretty explicitly racist depictions of African tribesmen and Chinese people (and a reference to ‘their eyes that slant).
It’s not a book burning. They will no longer print new copies but it shouldn’t be difficult to obtain one second hand. New books would not be permitted with these items included in them – everyone gets that right?
Den
We have seen from previous posts of yours that you have some difficulty understanding things. So I will try to make this as simple as possible for you. “They” (by which you probably mean the leftist-community-socialist-fascist- anarchist-denocrat bogeymen who populate your imagination) had nothing to to do with this.
Nor did Biden, nor did the democratic party, nor did “cancel culture” (another amusing right-wing bogeyman, right up there with the creepy antifa).
The decision to no longer continue publishing the titles in question was made by what is essentially the estate of Dr. Seuss. NOTHING is being banned, existing books will almost certainly remain on library shelves, and those in private collections will neither spontaneously burst into flames, nor will cancel police (who I am sure you dream about) come to your door to take yours, just like nobody came to take your guns during the Obama administration as you folks kept screaming they would.
Hard cover books last a long time. Despite what you might believe each reading does not remove a little bit of the ink from the page. And this is only 6 titles out of a huge number he wrote.
I know you folks love to play the victim and allow every little bit of social progress to arouse outrage, but give it a rest, child. It gets very tiresome. And if the majority of Americans ever do anything that merits your outrage, you’ll be like the boy who cried wolf.
Heywood Jablowme
@Monkey1: So what did you learn from that book? Do you still have a farting problem? Is farting now part of your identity?
“Beano and there’ll be no gas.”
Liquid Silver
I’m more unnerved that the House and Senate are dicking around with the unemployed again, who are going to have a hiatus in benefits. But hey, screw ’em, what, they’re gonna vote Republican or something? Who cares?
Monkey1
How many thousands unemployed due to the cancellation of the XL Pipeline?
Liquid Silver
I don’t care. Far more will be unemployed and dead if the environment, locally, regionally, or for the planet, is damaged or collapses.
Kill the stupid pipeline. It’s a pipe dream anyway.
Den
Probably only about 1000 will be rendered unemployed by the cancellation of the pipeline. The “tens of thousands of jobs” the right was screaming about were not yet in existence. But that is the kind of disingenuousness we expect from the right.
Better to direct your outrage to the programs to retrain coal workers for jobs in the high tech sector THAT HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL BUT WERE DEFUNDED WITHIN A FEW MONTHS OF TRUMP’S ELECTION. But I don’t imagine either FOX or Breitbart mentioned that at all, or the fact that the free market was killing the coal industry.
You folks are such predictable tools (so easily manipulated)!
Openminded
Sorry Monkey1, gotta support the stop of XL and I’m in the oil industry. Simply put, tar sand oil is closer to the goo in stretch armstrong than to typical crude. It requires exponential amounts of force to push it thru a pipeline which creates exponential risks of ruptures and environment ruin. It’s the crudest of crude and creates much more waste to dispose of. Why pump it thru the US to a refinery just to exchange it with other refined oil to go back to Canada, while leaving the waste here? Makes more sense to build a refinery in Canada and handle it there, but nobody wants to have a dirty stinking refinery in their country anymore so they try to use the ones we already have. Bottom line, fossil fuels are nasty and slowly on the way out. Hurts the hell out of my business, but it’s for the best.
Cam
@Monkey1
Far far less than the number who couldn’t get jobs because Republicans drove windmill makers overseas.
But nice try precious.
Thad
“If I Ran The Zoo” is credited for introducing the word “nerd” into English.
trsxyz
I’ve seen the offending images of Asians & Africans in these books. And though I’m typically opposed to cancel culture, I feel that Dr. Seuss Enterprises made the correct and responsible decision here. (An alternate path would have been to provide some sort a preface in the books containing the images.)
Annaronimo
A children’s book publishing house and reviewing its on content unasked, then deciding to remove lesser-known titles due to inappropriate content has zero to do with cancel culture. It’s a private company’s decision. This sort of thing happens all the time, and people selectively choose to care. I doubt many people have even read those particular books.
Prax07
Couldn’t they, the owners, just have hired someone to re-edit the offending images/text?
Annaronimo
They could have. It would seem they decided it wasn’t worth it. They aren’t any of the titles people actually cared about before the announcement- I doubt they sold very well.
renzinthewoods
Rampant Rethuglican Bull Hockey misleading their base once again by running around with their hair on fire over a half dozen rather obscure Seuss titles no longer being published, primarily over racist caricatures in the illustrations. All the Seuss books that I can name…the “Big Guns” of the canon…are not being cancelled. This is all about stirring up the Trumpanzee base and NOT AT ALL about Dr Seuss.
jackscott
This extreme PC stuffing is going overboard!
Den
I am sorry, where exactly do you see “PC stuffing” in a decision to stop publishing 6 titles out of the huge inventory of manuscripts that they own and control?
The existing copies will remain out there in the world, and most are hard covered which assures long life.
You right wingers just love to get your panties in a bunch don’t you?
Almost as if you get a hard-on playing the victim, and whining in outrage over imaginary horrors concocted or exaggerated specifically to manipulate your emotions.
Den
And are you actually upset that kids will no longer get to laugh at crude caricatures and overtly racist descriptions of minority groups?
What does that say about you?
Den
Actually, not get to laugh at them as easily or as often…
sadiedog63
Good grief are you ever a flipping dope.
Cam
It’s cute how people think complaining about “PC” hides the fact that they’re complaining that you can’t be openly racist without getting into trouble.
sadiedog63
Its typical rethuglican stupidity. Man if those people get any dumber, not one of them will ever hold office again! Hey morons, the company made the decision not president biden you thick empty skulled parasites! Are you rodents really this ignorant? So I guess the rethuglican mantra of a free market is just another bald faced lie by the lying, dirty GQP! GOOD GRIEF YOU SWAMP RATS ARE FRIGGIN DUMB! if any of you rodents had a brain you’d be seriously dangerous.
Den
“Are you rodents really this ignorant?”
Let’s see:
They elect high school drop outs with no knowledge of civics to represent them.
They elect verified liars and sexual predators who they laud as “good Christians”.
They prefer to believe what they are told, rather than what they see, feel, or hear, and then will gladly believe the opposite if told to a week later.
Some of them went to their graves from Covid-19, still insisting that the disease “was not real so they must have something else”.
Safe to say that yes, they really are that ignorant, and bizarrely proud of it.
cheks
In many schools this week is Dr Seuss week, and every year for decades this debate continues. (Yes, Dr Seuss has been deemed offensive for decades) With more and more schools opting to no longer promote his books, the company is doing what will ensure it continues to make money.
Also, there are interviews where Dr Seuss himself regrets the imagery. So, there’s nothing really to lose for the company, since even the author himself had no defense for them.
Also, not having the books in elementary schools are not for the benefit of white kids, but for the benefit of the kids who are being depicted in offensive ways.
mastik8
I guess just not buying and/or reading them isn’t enough.
man5996853
Is it an “angry conservative” selling the book for a million or is it an enterprising liberal capitalizing off of the ignorance of Republicans?
I’ll be checking my nephew’s and niece’s book bins tonight.
Cam
I didn’t recognize any of the books going out of Print. And as I understand it, Seuss’s opinions changed as he got older. So I have no problem here if they’ve decided not to run those books anymore.
Interesting how enraged Republicans get when things like racism, the Confederate Flag, bigotry etc. get called out.
It’s almost as if having racism being promoted helped them get elected.
Openminded
Never heard of these titles so I can’t say I really care. If it’s the publishers choice, it’s fine. Truth probably is they were not profitable to print anyhow so it’s a win-win for the company.