The Mouse That Roared

Dateline: 01/10/00

Once upon a time, in 1945 to be exact, E. B. White's book, Stuart Little, hit the bookstores and was a great success with kids and parents alike. How do I know? I was one of the kids and my Mom and Dad were two of the parents.

Once upon a time, in 1999 to be exact, Columbia/Sony released the movie, Stuart Little and created a big-time controversy. How do I know? I've been following the uproar at the forum [see below].

The Book

Stuart Little is a mouse. He was born to Mr. and Mrs. Little, and embarked on a series of adventures. Here's the story, according to a bit of tongue-in-cheek (but you get the idea):

Mr. and Mrs. Little

We gave birth to a rodent, and we're not the least bit traumatized.

(Stuart fetches stuff his parents lost.)

Stuart Little

I will have a quest of exploration and self-discovery.

(He does.)

Crucial Differences

The movie isn't like the book. No movie ever is, but the story line has been altered - making Stuart an adoptee rather than biological child - and, of course, there's the usual book-to-movie change from imagination (book) to visual certainty (movie). And we've got a problem.

Where we breezed through the book's fantasy assertion that Mouse Stuart was born to the Human Littles, the movie's cross-species adoption and subsequent involvement of imposter birthmice in wide-screen glory has been a definite hurdle for some adoptive families... human, real-life, adoptive families.

What They're Saying at the Forum

One parent strongly advises others not to take adopted children to see the movie, calling it brutally insensitive.
Another says that the movie sends a destructive message to innocent children.
Yet another believes it is, at the very least, crass to put adoptees on a par with rodents.
Other voices object to the portrayal of the sham-birthmouse-mom as a "floozy."
Some like the fact that Stuart felt like a member of the family in the end, despite their differences.
Several are debating "artistic license" that allows changes such as the biological-to-adoptive son transformation.
And from another poster, Let me clue you in to something, the story is fiction. Real people don't adopt mice or converse with them. By the way, cats and mice don't talk to each other in English either.

Next page > Were the Reviews Misleading? > Page 1, 2

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