The Power of Kids

(Once again, we couldn't do what we do without some master Seussologists like Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, and Jane Shattuc and the rest of their Seusspert friends.)

Dr. Seuss is a big fan of depicting kids rationally and adults like psychos. We're kind of okay with that.

For the Doctor, kids are the ones who care about the collective good, and they're the ones who are closest to expressing themselves freely, caring little about the power structure. And Dr. Seuss pretty much wanted kids to stay like that, rather than developing into the kind of monstrous adults who take over Germany, or um… care more about buying that new espresso machine than helping out the homeless guy around the block.

Now, there aren't kids in this story like there are in other Seuss narratives. But the turtles down below are a pretty good stand-in. They're just swimming around playing, after all, when the turtle in charge (the adult) tells them what to do. And it's Mack's immature potty humor or, uh, "free expression" that topples Yertle's regime.

So… Fascism, Hitler, flags, hierarchy, power structures, capitalism, kids. What is this story really about? Certainly not just a bunch of turtles.