Friday, January 2, 2009

Mice are good and rats are bad?

I went to see The Tale of Despereaux yesterday and was sorely disappointed. It wasn't the animation or the adaption of DiCamillo's Newbery-winning book that left me cold (lukewarm would be more accurate), but rather the depiction of that most maligned of rodents - the rat.

True, Roscuro is rather dashing in his shabby way, what with his earring and his world-weary expression. But Rat World...!!! A more horrifying place cannot be imagined, especially compared with the uber-quaintness that is Mouse World. Skulls, bones, rotting food, darkness, and vicious denizens - this bears no resemblance to my family's own sweet, curious, intelligent rats. However, in popular culture, mouse equals cute and rat equals squalid.


Thank goodness for Remy of Ratatouille, a movie rat all rodents can be proud of!
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5 comments:

  1. Monica EdingerJanuary 3, 2009 at 3:23 AM

    Nothing against rats at all, but I found Roscoro a far too cleaned-up version of his book character. Hard to rail too hard against the movie though I don't know what kids who come to the novel after the movie will think.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 3, 2009 at 8:12 AM

    I too was shocked by the depiction of rats. Many years ago we had two pet white rats - Orlando and Rascal and as my daughter so eloquent put it at the tender age of 8 yrs- "Mom, rats have a bad reputation- it's not fair".
    For me seeing the newborn Despereaux reminded me of not only my own child's birth but of the description in Billie Letts' novel " Where The Heart Is " of Novalee Nation gazing upon her newborn Americus, "How can you love someone so much that you just met?"
    Off to the beach for a walk then to work
    Genie

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  3. Handsome Colonel BreakfastJanuary 10, 2009 at 11:23 AM

    Haven't seen Despereaux. But Ratatouille - that was a bloomin' masterpiece!

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2009 at 2:14 PM

    Do you still have the boys? I might have a taker. Please email particulars to Afroitup@aol.com
    Genie

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  5. Eva MJanuary 12, 2009 at 9:59 AM

    Oh rats (so to speak)! We brought three of our rat dudes to the WLA Animal Shelter yesterday. Their photos should be up on the website - they are ready and eager to be adopted. (We kept two boys and a girl, plus the mom and aunt. Plus a hamster. Pretty rodent-y around my house.)

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