Happy Feet 2 Propaganda

People don’t often realize the level of hidden messages and propaganda that are thrown in the faces of their family through movies and TV shows.  Case in point, Happy Feet 2.  My wife brought the movie home from the library and we figured, “why not”?  Keep in mind that our son is only 3 and wouldn’t have picked up on these things but, both my wife and I did.  I will preface this analysis by stating that Happy Feet 2 isn’t a “bad” movie per se, however, it is filled with things that just irked and distracted the crap out of us.  If you haven’t seen the movie, you can read the spoiler-free plot summary below but, after that, expect no mercy.

Plot Summary:

Mumble the dancing penguin is back, along with all of his friends, family and his son in an all new fantastically sickeningly sweet adventure, suitable for most family audiences,  Mumble discovers that his son doesn’t feel like he fits in.  At some point, some things happen to move the plot along and all of the emperor penguins end up being in danger. (not a spoiler, should be expected)  Will Mumble’s son find his own special gifts and will they be able to save penguin-kind before it is too late?  To find out the answers, which you probably already know, watch the movie.

The Propaganda:

Global Warming/Climate Change:

Is climate change happening? Yes.  Is climate change largely the fault of man and not some normal cycle as things in nature tend to be? Probably not.  Should children’s movies make light of climate change as a cause for an entire race of innocent penguins to be at risk for destruction?  Absolutely Not!

In the first Happy Feet, the penguins were running out of food due to humans over-fishing.  This scenario, actually had some sense to it.  Over-fishing IS bad and CAN cause problems like this.  Now, a chunk of ice the size of a city skyscraper covered New York City block falling into the water and trapping the penguins in a matter of seconds?  C’mon!

First, it would take time for an iceberg that size to get through the water.  If the penguins were rational, as in the movie, they would have had time to relocate.  However, it must be made clear to families and children that this COULD be a real life thing!  Penguins could be trapped like this right now!

The other clear instance of global warming took place in the setting of the other, smaller penguins’ homes on the other side of Antarctica. (not sure if these kind of penguins actually live there or not but, a moot point)  Instead of their home being rocky with some snow and ice, like in the first movie, OH NO, there is grass coming up through the melting snow!  That’s right, icy paradise is becoming green pasture land!  Again, another way of subconsciously getting that Global Warming message in there,

I want to make it clear that no character, at any time, spoke about weather or climate change.  The human beings in the movie didn’t either, although, they were happy to watch the giant iceberg slam into the emperor penguin habitat on their radar screen and look shocked.  The point here is that, despite the movie not TELLING the audience outright about global warming, there was enough suggestive material to get the point across.

New Age Themes: 

I will preface this by saying that, whatever faith you are is whatever faith you are.   If you are an Oprah-holic new-age subscriber who believes that you can simply will yourself to a better place in life and that if it doesn’t work you just aren’t willing hard enough and believing enough, fine, just don’t push it onto my kids.

In the movie, a Puffin, which looks like a penguin but, can fly, convinces everyone that he is, in fact, a penguin.  Did I also mention that his home was destroyed by floods caused by global warming?

Anyway, this Puffin tells everyone “If you will it, it will be yours”.  Now, his guru message applies to and holds enraptured, all of the smaller penguin race.  But, to Mumble’s son Erik, he is even more of an inspiration.  Erik wants to fly and is told that he just needs to will it and he will get it.

A couple times in the movie Erik acts as if he is willing something to happen, or at least trying to.  He “wills” a successful rescue at one point and even attempts, and fails to “will” himself to fly.

Now, if the saying “you can be anything, if you put your mind to it” was used and Erik then lashed a bunch of lines to a bunch of flying birds that then hauled him into the air, that would be different.  However, claiming that a person can simply will themselves into what they want, does not, in my opinion, reflect reality.  Granted, some people believe that this does and has worked for them, and I respect that.  I just don’t agree with it and don’t want this kind of new age, “you can simply will yourself into being a millionaire and if you fail you aren’t willing hard enough” mentality and don’t want it presented to my kids.

Gender-Neutral Relationship Themes:

Bill and Will are a pair of krill.  They decide to break away from their bio-mass and strike out on their own for adventure.  Along the way, one of them begins to feel a special bond between the two of them.  After all, this is quite the adventure for two little krill alone in the big ocean!  This bond couldn’t just be a deep sense of friendship or brotherhood between them, could it?  I mean, every adventure story ends up having that, right?  Well, I’ll just let the quotes below speak for themselves…

Bill: Let’s make our own swarm!
Will: We’re both males.
Bill: Let’s adopt!
Will: No.  You adopt! I adapt!
Bill: Fine!  There are many other krills in the sea.
Bill: Will?  Wait for me!

Yup, they went there.

I cannot, possibly, for the life of me, think of any reason why sexuality needs to come into play for a movie for young kids!  Granted, the female penguins have expanded chests to look like breasts, but, I don’t agree with that either.  Despite what the government-controlled school programs on human sexuality might say there is no reason at all that kids should be seeing or hearing anything having to do with sexuality at the age range this movie is marketed toward, let alone, gender-neutral relationships!

Now, kids might not actually pick up on this stuff directly but, parents do, as do older children.  A family movie should be just that, a family movie.  Don’t pander to an audience outside of your target audience just to try to gain more viewers and don’t try to push an agenda.

Now, there were a couple of other things that might have been coincidental in this regard or, may have been intentional.  Lovelace, the main guru/leader of the smaller penguins, was wearing a rainbow-colored sweater and was quite the hedonist in the original movie.  Also, a majority of the movie’s music came from the band Queen, which, granted, has great music, but, also had an openly gender-neutral lead singer who died of complications due to AIDS.  I will CLEARLY STATE, these are NOT necessarily signs of the gender-neutral themes in the movie but COULD be construed to be so.  I make no ruling in that regard.

Closing:

In closing,  I want to say that overall, Happy Feet 2 was NOT a bad movie.  It wasn’t a great movie, but, it wasn’t bad either.  I’d give it a 3 out of 5 on my rating scale.  However, I did want to use certain parts of this movie to point out that films like these can have hidden agendas.  They could also have very anti-New age, anti-Gender-Neutral and anti-Global Warming messages that would be obvious as well.  However, coming from my background, these were the things that jumped out at my wife and I.

Regardless of a person’s views on these topics, I feel it safe to say that most people would agree that this stuff doesn’t need to be in a kid’s movie.  Younger kids don’t understand it, older kids can be influenced by it and adults can either be influenced or just really annoyed by it.

-News Master

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