The Very Problematic Man With The Yellow Hat

~ Laura

For a long time, Steve and I have concerns about the Man with the Yellow Hat. A few years ago, I blogged, 

…I’m very concerned that the Man With the Yellow Hat isn’t
really a good friend to George.
First he takes him from the jungle and sells him to a zoo. Later, he
blasts him off into space for laughs. He also puts George in a movie
and does George see one dime for all that work? No, he doesn't. The Man
with a Yellow Hat is rather exploitive. A monkey pimp, if you will.

(via loren on facebook).

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “The Very Problematic Man With The Yellow Hat”

  1. Classic Man With the Yellow Hat is a total asshole. George should have ripped his face or testicles off at some point, following the example of some of his chimp brethren.

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  2. Thanks for the link! My former advisor, William Moebius, is a children’s literature scholar (particularly of picture books). One interesting thing that he used to analyze in the first edition of the Curious George book is that the text (written by Margret Rey, but only credited in later editions) “fights” with the illustrations. (he wrote an article about this phenomenon taking place in several picture books written/illustrated by couples). One example is the image of George flying with the baloons, smiling broadly while the text says that he’s scared. This book can also be analyzed from a post-colonialist point of view, which Herzog does at some points.
    P.S. I’m very honored because you added my blog to your blogroll. I hadn’t noticed this before and it made my day. For someone who has all but given up on academic/intellectual life, little things like being in someone’s blogroll mean a whole lot. Thank you Laura!

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  3. Lilian, have you or your advisor had anything to say about “Hippos Go Berserk.” Because I have problems with the statement “All the hippos go berserk” when nine of them are carrying trays of drinks and snacks. Not to mention the fact that the waiter/waitress hippos leave in a bus while the glam hippos ride a helicopter home.

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  4. One of the things I loved about the classic Curious George books is the pipes. I got a subversive thrill presenting my daughter with Rey’s guileless view of tobacco. Nowadays, I get the same from Pa’s gun in _Little House on the Prairie_.

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  5. I’d be curious to know what Bill would say to that. I’d never seen those books (there were two, but I don’t remember if both were about hippos) until I the publisher mailed them to me last year (at least I think it was the publisher, sometimes I’d get random books in the mail because of the blog, I usually received an email beforehand, though, which was not the case with these books).
    I found them interesting, but not particularly good. I always pay close attention to text and illustrations, though, and I recall (I’m too lazy sitting here to go get the books, maybe later) that my initial reaction to the artwork in the hippo books was that the text was totally dependent on the (mostly fun and smart) rhyming, but the illustrations sometimes didn’t convey the precise meaning of the text. I guess beserk would be best illustrated by a “wild rumpus” kind of agitation, not trays of food and drink ;-).

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  6. The hippos did have a wild rumpus, except for the nine who were forced into the catering business after their jobs were moved to China. Boynton does allot of books, most of them with a hippo somewhere. The point of “Hippos Go Berserk” is to count from 1 to 9 and then back to 1 again. So the hipppos arrived and left in groups.

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