Cinema - Happy Feet

However unlikely it seems, penguins (or more particularly penguin movies) have been playing a leading role in the political battles between the Left and Right in US politics. It all started with the Christian Right’s high-profile endorsement of the nature documentary, March of the Penguins, in 2005. Religious groups rushed in to praise the film for its promotion of traditional family values such as monogamy, child-rearing, and sacrifice. American churches block-booked cinemas and advised their members to take in a notebook, a torch and a pen in order to write down when God ‘spoke’ to them. Michael Medved in the New York Times claimed it was the first film that had challenged the liberal bias of Hollywood since The Passion of Christ, “This is the Passion of the Penguins”, he said.
Now, the penguins are back (albeit in computer animated form), in the 2006 George Miller (Babe, Mad Max) picture, Happy Feet. Hailed as the Left’s answer to the March of the Penguins, Conservatives have claimed that the film is ‘laced with liberal overtones’ and ‘pushing a global-warming agenda’. Actually, there is no mention of global-warming but the eco-cautionary tale revolves around one penguin’s attempts to identify the mysterious ‘alien’ source which threatens to drain penguin’s food supplies (it’s no surprise to learn that’s where we come in.) Also ruffling Conservative feathers is the anti-Conformist take on the penguin community which turns the Emperor colony into a repressive cult-like environment in which individuals are shunned for being ‘different’. ER