Somewhere, the Lorax is Weeping

I'm absolutely sick to my stomach after discovering how many corporations are affiliated with The Lorax (relased in theatres tomorrow, March 2).  In particular, I'm offended by this ad:

Now I may be biased because I'm a children's librarian, but I love Dr.Seuss's The Lorax, and I strongly feel that the studio has overlooked the real message of this book.  The producers have chosen to highlight the environmental aspects of the story, but by partnering with companies like Mazda (and IHOP and Pottery Barn and Hilton and HP and Whole Foods and the list goes on and on) they have completely disregarded another important component of the story.

See, the Lorax is a simple guy, just hanging out in the forest with his pals.  When the Wicked Once-ler comes along and uses a Truffula Tree to knit a Thneed (a very useless, silly-looking garment that no reasonable person would wear), the Lorax asks him who the hell would need a stupid thing like that?

Of course, some moron runs up and buys the Thneed right away.  The response?

"You poor stupid guy.  You never can tell what some people will buy."

And that's the real point.  We have a society full of companies cranking out useless shit that we don't really need and we just keep buying it.  The Lorax would never sell you an SUV.  He'd be like, why don't you save a Truffula Tree and WALK instead?

I like to think he'd be fully in support of bike-riding, as well.  Now that it's March, I hope to be riding my bike to work on a regular basis as soon as possible.  Let's just hope we don't have a repeat of this unfortunate event: