I am not a mouse, and even if I was, I would either be one of those cute mice in nature specials that cleverly avoid snakes and hawks or a world famous French chef. You can do that, if you’re a mouse. I saw a documentary about it.
Some people hate mice, the same way Indiana Jones hates snakes. Maybe they may have had a bad mouse experience, once. But when I was about six years old there was a movie that came out about mice that I absolutely wasn’t allowed to see because it was a horror movie, but I was fascinated by because its theme song was a love ballad sung by Michael Jackson.
The movie and song were called “Ben”. I saw Michael Jackson sing the song on a tv show where he explained that it was supposed to be about a mouse. The year before, Isaac Hayes had won the Academy Award for best song for Shaft (another movie I wasn’t allowed to see) which was the third win for any African American and the first in that category for the Oscars. So when this song was also nominated, and was a number one pop hit, it really did represent this whole new world of possibilities.
I probably didn’t even see the tv commercials for the movie. Thus, I completely missed the whole ‘disenfranchised youth seeking revenge against his oppressors by using his preternatural affinity with the local rat population of Los Angeles to create a rodent army’ thing.
Much later a very edited version of the film played on the “ABC Saturday Night Movie”; and my Mom and I did watch that. I was really kind of surprised that it didn’t have anything at all to do with black people, but under her breath my mother said that it absolutely did.
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Rats and mice (different animals, by the way) are both as smart as dogs; recognize their own names, stuff like that. And contrary to B-movie lore, they normally do not attack en masse… the main fear is always that rats will “spread disease” by not washing their little paws between meals and walking on the dirty dirty floor.
My mom was actually bit by a rat once. On the face. So she’s not really fond of them. As a kid our apartment did have some mice, and occasionally we’d put out some mouse traps, but I was still taught to respect them (with certain geographical boundaries) as they were living on the planet same as I. Me. I. I’ll look that up. We knew that there were more mice than people in the world, but once our little apartment was relatively free of everything that wasn’t a person or pet, we didn’t venture to destroy every mouse everywhere, ‘cause that would be crazy.
I did not own nature, and had to acquiesce to the fact that there are places in the world that belong to mice. We just don’t live there. But we can’t begrudge them a freedom of their own moustitude and yes I have veered into the metaphorical with a thud both subtle and resonant.
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Even though I am not a mouse, I always understand that people may have had a bad experience coloring their initial opinion of me… c’mon, we’ve all met somebody that jump-scared us because they adversely reminded us of somebody else (that unfortunately always seemed to happen on dates). I also understand if people don’t want me in their homes, metaphorically or literally. Hey, home = castle.
But my mom’s under breath comment about “Ben” wasn’t that “some individuals in society are seen as mice”, but (and hold on the the railing for this one) it was more about the shift of focus from a rat being an individual living thing to a not so subtle group reclassification of rats using a single word which, to her, held a very deadly delineation.
Vermin.
Rats and mice live in the wild (or as Michelin rated chefs in Paris), vermin are trying to get into your house, and take your food, etc, etc, I’m sure you can fill all that in, we’ll continue.
My mother, in her lifetime, had been labeled as such, with no avenue open for redefinition.
To quote: “People perceived as despicable and as causing problems for the rest of society.” Oxford English Dictionary.
This one word defined her clearly as an “other”, justified the nullification of her status as an individual human being, and instantly defended the necessity of a war against this nameless horde.
Though not a great work of art, “Ben” did demonstrate that while one outsider can be a friend, a mass of outsiders would never be allowed to exist, as vermin are things you don’t like in places you don’t want them to be.
But you can’t just get rid of what you don’t like. I mean, I’ve become increasingly opposed to this little ring of pudge around my belly and I just bought some moderately priced giant rubber bands to work on it, we’ll see how all that goes, but that’s clearly a change about myself, in my own house.
In the outside world, I focus more on balance; I do what I can, where I can, for the people I can do if for, my goal being to offset some of the negative, but not to eradicate it. Idiots and evil is are gonna be out there, all the time, and do I feel like some people want to eradicate ME? Yeah. Yeah, I do.
But I believe that if we engage the world with compassion, directly affecting even one person, if I keep doing that, I can widen a net connected to the best parts of us. Help balance out the garbage in the world, for everybody, for all the living things on the planet. That’s my intention.
And if you do that right, it may actually “cause problems for the rest of society” depending on what society is where you are, but that isn’t what despicable means. Bugs Bunny didn’t take that crap.
I don’t know what animal does that. Goes from person to person trying to make things better. Maybe a bee? I don’t think I’m a bee either.
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I do associate myself with a couple of animals; the unicorn (which, ok, is fictional, let’s agree to agree), and the raven. I have a raven tattoo. I am not unappreciative of the fact that a collection of ravens is called an unkindness, or of the more truly threatening description of a group of crows. I kinda like it, it’s not bad to have a power animal. But it’s not the mouse for me. You just won’t find me pulling a thorn from a lion’s paw or even happily nibbling on cheese since I’m lactose intolerant, which is really a pity because I happen to make a fantastic creme brûlée. A bientot.
…thanks for your time.
Fellow Mortals