This Guy's Take on 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' Will Make You Question Everything You Believe

It's officially Christmas time, folks. You should have already listened to Christmas in Dixie by Tyler O'Day and myself, and now we have entered the portion of the year where I will be watching a Christmas movie more or less every night for the next four weeks.

Inevitably, we'll get to How the Grinch Stole Christmas at some point, but I don't think I'll ever be able to watch that film again with the innocence I had at the time of my last viewing. What the hell did I just read? Max is the "banality of evil"?! He's a dog!

When it comes to this take, I am stuck somewhere between "This is the most insane shit I have ever read," and "This guy is actually making some valid points here." I mean, there isn't anything provably untrue in there. Max does assist The Grinch in all of his Christmas-ruining activities.

However, I do think there is room to analyze the willfulness of Max's participation. He's a dog, pal. Good dogs do what they're told to do. Now, if you're ascribing a human-like capacity for understanding to Max, then I suppose we're having a different conversation. But assuming dogs in Whoville are composed similarly to the dogs we know, then it is wholly unfair to characterize Max as deliberately furthering some sort of agenda. He's doing what he thinks he's supposed to be doing.

With that said, Max is an assistant without whom The Grinch would be unable to achieve many of his goals at the end of the day. So I suppose it really comes down to whether or not you believe someone is responsible for their actions even if they don't fully understand what they're doing.

I am choosing to believe Max was a victim of his circumstances and was simply doing his best to be a good dog. But I will never be able to watch this movie again without thinking about this the entire time.