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Daddy on the Road, Mommy on the Run
December 9, 2006
There's a different rhythm fueling "Happy Feet" -- Part 1
For every time I've thought, "Wish I had something cultural to blog about" I think I landed square on it today.
Before you read on, be advised -- this blog contains spoilers!
This afternoon, my best friend, Leslie, and I took three of her angels and my two angels to see the movie "Happy Feet" -- now, before you bang the gavel of judgment or quit reading my heresy in a huff or crucify me on the altar of legalism, YOU send your husband literally half way around the world for 10 days, then help your children say goodbye to their favorite grandparents the morning of the same day your husband is coming home at 10pm. THEN you stop reading in a huff and blog your own entry about what a heretic Sarah is. (And by the way, fellow English majors -- I am WELL aware that movies are NOT to be in caps but underlined or better yet italicized; please indulge me my flagrant error)
Now... if you're still here...
"Happy Feet" was NOT a movie I ever thought we'd see, mainly because Leslie had heard it had serious homosexual content (it does NOT). So I checked it out on Focus on the Family's Plugged In Online media guide. I tried to use Screen It because it is SO thorough, but it's now a $25 a year service and I'm just cheap. Plugged In gave it pretty decent ratings, and since I knew I wanted to avoid "Flushed Away" (anything that makes toilets & sewers amusing is simply not my style) and "Santa Clause" (Santa's just not our style), "Happy Feet" seemed like a good choice.
Again, please remember -- Daddy on the road for 10 days to a place where he couldn't even get home in 12 hours if he HAD to, coming home at 10pm (how many hours past bedtime is that?), favorite family leaving at 9am, we've done everything that usually makes the day fly by and it's only 11am = we're going to the movies.
So, we get to the theater, grab snacks, and sit down. The movie opened with Prince's song "Kiss" ("You don't have to be beautiful....rich... I just need your body, baby....") so I started off the entire movie edgy (please remember, my children are growing up surrounded by music ministry... they're all too capable of memorizing lyrics).
The first "objectionable" thing to me was the portrayal of Mumble's father as backwards, stereotyped by a Southern accent. You know, "ya'll" is NOT the international sign for "dumb."
Next, the elders of Mumble's penguin community are all obviously old men who speak in "preachy" Scottish voices and LITERALLY use Scriptural references in King James English to maintain order among the group. They speak of the "great penguin" who "fills our stomachs with fish" though they also mention their ancestors thousands of years ago "trading their feathers for flippers to swim the seas" -- apparently they're as narrow-minded as Christian stereotypes get, but conveniently theistic evolutionists. How nice for them. Especially offensive to me, these leader penguins (with drawn faces and furrowed brow-feathers) speak of the "great 'guin" who "giveth and taketh away." I resented this to no end because my children's favorite praise song is "Blessed be Your Name" -- "You give and take away... Blessed be the Name of the LORD, Blessed be Your Glorious Name." Grrrrr..... The leaders -- and Mumble's father -- also make clear that if everyone will pray hard enough, believe hard enough and conform hard enough, the "great penguin" will send fish; but since Mumble won't conform and believe's there's another reason for the decline in dinner, they're being deprived.
It is soon made clear that the real reason there's a great famine is the "aliens" who have tagged one of the hawk-like birds via yellow band and radio frequency insert under the wing and left a six-pack ring in the water which is strangling another. These "aliens" (as you've already guessed) are humans. Nice.
Here's the best part of the "aliens" bit -- when Mumble and friends go to find the "aliens" and, in Mumble's words, "...appeal to their better nature..." the FIRST thing they see in the "alien land" is a church with a cross on the steeple. NICE. VERY NICE. So, the inaugural symbol of the "bad people" is a cross. A church. Fabulous.
Add to this that everything about the aliens, all the "evidence" of aliens -- a large crane, an abandoned fishing village, the huge fishing ship -- is portrayed as dark in color, dingy in hue, sharp spears and pokers everywhere, metal teeth on equipment, and music befitting a Court TV special on the DC snipers. It was over the top, really.
When Mumble bravely swims to a fishing vessel and clings desperately to the completely unrealistically large net full of fish, he is poked and prodded and shoved (with one of aforementioned sharp spears) until he plummets into the water, nearly dies on the ship's rudder, and watches helplessly as the "aliens" leave him in their vessel's ever quickening wake.
Mumble eventually gets contact with the "aliens" as part of an aquarium's penguin exhibit, where they all look at him for their own selfish pleasure and are happily amused by his continual cries (in penguin language, of course) for help in stopping the fish shortage. One day he begins dancing in the tank, this makes him popular, he's given a non-invasive tracking devise and returns to his penguin home (somehow, it was magically stuck to his back -- maybe it was a back pack and I just missed the straps). Once home, Mumble tries -- once again -- to persuade the leaders that he knows the "aliens" are taking the fish, he's talked with them to receive help, and he can show them how to dance & get the "alien's" attention & delight. The leaders maintain there is no such thing as aliens, then slip up and say "why would you lead them here" which compromises their original stance and portrays them as fearful buffoons. Mumble's mother comes to take him to his father who says, "Son, there hasn't been a day when I done right by you." The father is obviously sorry for not supporting his son, the mother convinces him to let Mumble teach him to dance, and suddenly everyone in the community is enlightened and encouraged by the father's forsaking his traditional stance and taking on the new ways Mumble has presented.
Finally -- and most frighteningly -- the "aliens" come (following said non-invasive, environmentally friendly tracking device), the penguins dance, they're amazed & try -- albeit awkwardly -- to dance with them -- but one falls, of course, because how could these clumsy "aliens" be as smooth as the penguins?
In the climactic montage, the "aliens" put the penguins on TV around the world, there are politicians and protests to "Stop commercial fishing!" and "Why should we go down there for a bunch of birds?" In the final -- triumphant -- scene of the montage, a well suited man proclaims, "Put the signs up! NO MORE FISHING!" and steps aside his podium to thunderous applause, only to reveal the UN emblem behind him.
In the final moments, Mumble and his friends happily sing and dance with plenty of fish and all ends well. There are LOTS of things to LIKE about this movie -- if you're any kind of music fan at all, you'll be doing the Bucket-seat-Boogie the entire two hours. Children will be delighted by the fun-loving penguins and their fabulous dancing. There are some very intense moments -- escapes from killer whales and hungry sharks and sea lions with horrible teeth -- that I wish I'd known about beforehand (because mine are so young). But the message that DIFFERENT is NOT bad is very clear -- and honestly, that doesn't bother me -- we've spent significant moments in our home discussing how our differences aren't drawbacks, they are ordained (again, please understand that my children lead a very singular existence... the life we are called to as a result of my husband's ministry is VASTLY different from that of my children's friends). However, I found my head shaking when Mumble tells his dad, "Don't ask me to change, I can't; it's who I am." See, there's LOTS of things that I "cannot" change but HAVE to, by the Spirit of God... but then again, this is the same movie that purports appealing to people's "better nature" and you and I both know there's NO such thing as our human selves having a "better nature."
Apparently, I am not the only one who feels there's more to this movie. Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News and Neil Cavuto of FoxNews have reportedly suggested that the movie is bedfellow with Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Honestly, I'm not well read enough to substantiate either; when Leslie and I first discussed the film (regarding the possible homosexual content), I had seen some links to Beck & Cavuto's reporting. But I never followed up -- if you remember, we weren't planning to see the movie. So, you'll have to check out the information on your own -- in fairness, the links I've given to Beck & Cavuto's reports aren't from their networks -- I couldn't find the pieces on cursory search of Fox (and frankly, I hate looking at the CNN site; I'm just hardheaded enough not to want to give them any more site traffic than utterly necessary).
So, that's my "report" for now. I'm going to be writing more about the "Why didn't you get up and leave?" and why I'm planning to use it with my high school students. But my goal here was simply to make public what I saw -- a very subtle inculcation and, more frighteningly, an indoctrination into an extreme leftist worldview. I once heard a Christian educational expert state that if the enemy can make sin entertaining -- if we can laugh at it and see it as "friendly" and "humorous" then it's palpable to us and we're far more likely to take it up.
In this case, God FORBID!
My children will grow up with HIS worldview, innocent as lambs and shrewd as snakes, ready in season and out of season to give a reason for the GLORIOUS Hope they've been given in Christ Jesus. They will not sit in the seat of mockers nor stand in the way of sinners; a thousand may fall at their side, ten thousand at their right hands, but it will NOT come near them; they will only observe with their eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. No weapon forged against them will prevail and they will refute every tongue that accuses them because this is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, their vindication from Him.
Heavenly Father, THANK YOU that D is state-side now and that he is coming home TONIGHT! Thank You, too, for this opportunity to see this movie which has sparked my thoughts and sharpened my conscience in You. Father, thank You for the clear picture of what my neighbors and their children are beginning to believe apart from You; thank You for this picture of the culture and the challenge to engage it for Christ. LORD, I know You will hold me accountable; I know there is a purpose for having seen this film and having been shown Your Truth. Let this now become an opportunity to pursue relationship with those who do not know You, that they may know the Author and Perfecter of our faith -- that they may WORSHIP the LORD in spirit and in truth. In Your Name, amen.
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Anonymous 
December 9, 2006 - movie