Happy Feet

The movie Happy Feet is about how a disabled penguin, Mambo, overcomes religious prejudice to undercover the cause of the environmental disaster facing the penguins and other animals. And he doesn't get the girl.

Disability

The whole premise of the movie is that Emperor Penguins need to sing in order to attract a mate. When Mambo (aka Mumbles) is born, his disability is that he cannot sing. Despite the best efforts of his parents and teachers, he is not able to overcome this disability.

His disability leads to his isolation which almost gets him killed on two (2) occasions. When he tries to join in the graduation celebrations, he is told that he is ruining it for everyone else. The movie is very effective in highlighting the isolation that the disabled face.

Another point is that the delayed development of the disabled individual as signified by the retention of down by Mambo throughout the movie. Although the amount of down decreases as Mambo matures, it is still there at the end of the movie.

Is this meant to signify that the physically disabled are also intellectually disabled, or, at least, have delayed development? I think the movie emphasises the intellectual advancement made by Mambo about the Penguin economic crisis.

However, because Mambo is unable to participate in the Penguin community life, his social development is retarded. So the conclusion of the movie is that physical disability causes social immaturity but not intellectual disability.

The character in the movie with a disability is Lovelace who has a plastic six-pack spreader around his neck. However, Lovelace is able to use this to acquire a position of influence: cultural, intellectual, and sexual. And his disability can be cured by the removal of the plastic.

Religion

The religion of the Emperor Penguins is presented as:

• Gender Roles: the males sit on the eggs, and the females fish
• Social Organisation: Noah and his cohorts rule the roost.
• Funding Myth: how penguins lost their ability to fly.
• Economic Distribution: all the males share time and warmth within the huddle.
• Hope: throughout the long winter, Noah reminds the male penguins of the return of the Sun.
• Explanation: the provision of fish is the will of the Great 'Guin.
• Culture: penguins sing not dance.

What Mambo does, by the end of the movie, is to successfully challenge these last two (2) items. And, in doing so, he brings into question the social organisation.

Nowhere does he question the existence of the Great 'Guin. Except that everything he does and thinks has no reference to the Great 'Guin. It is Ovjective Atheism - he has no need of religion because it does not influence his thoughts and actions. Religion still affects him through social interaction because other Penguins do what Noah says the Great 'Guin wants them to do.

Environment and Economic Impact

The economic crisis facing the penguins is the dwindling supply of fish in the Antartic Ocean caused by overfishing by humans (the "aliens" in the movie).

The religious explanation was the Great 'Guin was holding back on the fish and will soon relent.

From the hawks, Mambo learns about the aliens who tagged one of the hawks with a yellow leg ring. Mambo makes a tentative guess that the aliens could be involved.

It is when Mambo encounters Lovelace and his alien artefact which Lovelace claims is the source of his power, that Mambo becomes more convinced that the aliens are behind the disappearance of the fish.

This hypothesis is confirmed when Mambo and the others see the great fishing fleet.

Animal Rights

Animal rights is probably the most contentious issue in the whole movie. Do animals have the right to live because they are one or more of the following:

• Cute?
• Useful to humans?
• because they are animals?

The answer in the movie is the first one. This is the most dangerous reason of all because it reflects the anthrocentric view of the world (as does the second reason): humans are the most important creatures on the planet because (insert some reason here) and everything else has to accomodate it.

The third reason presupposes that humans are just another species on the planet. Life on Earth will continue in some form if the humans ever become extinct. Life is just a process without a purpose.

It is in our interests, as animals, to ensure that the planet remains habitable for all animals. We are not aliens - we are part of the ecology of the planet.

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