Why 'The Grinch' Is MUCH Darker Than You Ever Realized

When we meet the Whos, we learn a few things about them that the original Boris Karloff narration of the 1966 Grinch cartoon left out. The first thing is that they're microscopic. The entire species lives on a speck of dust on top of a flower. The Whos are like a hippie version of that tiny Kryptonian city that Superman keeps around, presumably so that he can still say "But look at how BIG and MIGHTY I am!" whenever he gets his ass kicked by Batman.

The other thing is that Whos never make a peep.

The Whos, at this point in their history, don't blow floofloovers or bang tartookas, and don't play noisy games like Zozittacarzay. Instead, they ride bikes. They go on walks. They're peaceful and quiet; so much so that nobody but Horton even notices they're there.

When Horton does notice them, it's a little bit weirder than you might realize. Because Horton doesn't hear a speck of dust bustling with noise -- he hears one Who yell out "Help!" and nothing else coming from all of Whoville. In fact, the town is so quiet that Horton thinks there's only one person there at first.

Random House

To put that into perspective, this speck of dust is their whole planet, and Horton is several feet away. This is like one person on earth yelling out the word "Help!" and it overpowering all seven billion other people by so much that an alien on the other side of the galaxy can distinguish it from every other noise coming out of the planet.

That means that no other Who was making any noise whatsoever.

The whole narrative is about Horton trying to get them to make enough noise to save themselves. He tells every Who in Whoville that they can't be quiet any longer. They need to start banging on things and screaming as loud as they can, because the only way he can convince the animals to spare the Whos is if they can hear them.

Random House

So they do. Every Who in Whoville starts making noise until finally the animals decide not to kill them after all. It's heartwarming at first ... but then you realize that every time Horton isn't around, these creatures are two seconds away from massacring anything that won't shriek back at them.

As a story on its own, this teaches children a valuable lesson: Never commit genocide, no matter how hilarious it might be. But in the history of the Whoish people (Whores?), it tells the story of a major turning point -- the near-destruction of their entire species, brought about because they didn't make enough noise.

Random House

You'd better believe it changed them.

The Grinch hates Christmas, but that's just because it's a little bit worse than usual. The Whos are like this all year-round, which is probably why he lives on a mountain outside of town.

This is a huge cultural shift. These people were once so quiet that if one person shouted, they could overpower the entire planet. But a near-genocide has turned these quiet, modest people into terrible neighbors who can't go three seconds without banging a drum.

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Which is actually completely reasonable. Because they were in constant peril from the start of Horton Hears A Who!. When we first see them, they're terrified that their planet is going to drift into a pool and they'll all drown.

At the end of the book, a kangaroo volunteers to take care of them. But the kangaroo can only figure out where they are when every single Who in Whoville is making as much noise as physically possible. Meaning that all of that protection that keeps them alive is gone if they stop banging on drums for so much as a second.

Random House

That means that they're not making this noise to celebrate. They're making that noise because they live in constant terror that at any moment, some random kangaroo might come along and throw them into a vat of oil for a laugh.

The Whos aren't celebrating their love of Christmas; they're just continuing to make as much noise as possible to prevent the extermination of their race. They've woken up to find all their noisemakers stolen, and they're freaking out. Their survival relies on those things. If their animal protectors can't hear them, they could drift into another pool or get picked up by another eagle, and the whole society would be over.

So they do what they can with what they have: their voices. And only because it's the holidays do they harmonize something other than "FOR GOD'S SAKE. DON'T KILL US. DON'T KILL US. WE HAVE FAMILIES. PLEASE, GOD."

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So no, Grinch, they're not out there singing because they love Christmas so much. They're out there singing because they'll die if they don't.

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