Happy Feet - people complain about this film?

[IanC]

So i watched the "dancing penguins" movie, Happy Feet today. Really enjoyed it.

Anyway i was looking at a few reviews of it and I noticed something that according to High Def Digests review of the blu-ray "There was a considerable amount of fuss made during 'Happy Feet's theatrical release by certain conservative family groups, apparently over the films overt liberal, eco-friendly message."

Seriously? Groups complained about a film having a small message about "hey, lets not fish too much". Damn.

[darthtoxic]

I haven't seen the film, but apparently some people weren't pleased with the "non-conformist" angle from which the protagonist was written, since the stubborn, angry, old-school traditionalist characters, which many Conservatives can obviously see themselves reflected in, were made into antagonists of a sort.

I think there's at least one mainpage quote about it.

[Tiberius]

People are also upset because the antagonists are a bunch of old, ignorant, bigotted fools who worship a 'great pinguin' and attempt to please it instead of anything useful when the fish supply becomes increasingly depleted, fighting any attempt at finding a more sensible reason for it while making an exile of Mumble for being slightly and harmlessly different. Apparantly, they drew a connection between them and Fundamentalist Christians.

[Mira]

It seems fundies can sympathise with even the least likable of antagonists.

[HarleyThomas1002]

I only saw the first few minutes of when the penguin just started dancing and the other penguins treating him like a Conservative family treats their homosexual kid.

I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

[Amaranth]

Jan 19, 2010 16:35:13 GMT -5 Mira said:

It seems fundies can sympathise with even the least likable of antagonists.

I'm surprised they haven't tried to Boycott a Christmas Carol yet.

[HarleyThomas1002]

Except that the True Christians(TM) aren't portrayed as worse and worse as they're being accuratly portrayed.

I'm pretty sure they'd bitch if they watched a movie and a Middle Eastern man didn't have a beard and wasn't blowing himself up while screaming Allah.

[Art Vandelay]

Seeing as the film has a very overt "not conforming is good" message, it's perfectly logical conservatives would whinge about it, seeing as the very definition of "conservative" is "in favour of maintaining the status quo".

[Amaranth]

Jan 21, 2010 3:45:35 GMT -5 @m said:

www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2006/happyfeet2006.html
(skip down to the negative reviews.). Here's a couple of gems:

Even the scene where the penguins are praying to the penguin God is very dark and seemed demonic. Clear sexual and racial undertones in the movie. All the emperor penguins, you'd have to make the assumption are black, based upon the music (hip hop and rap) as well as the way they speak, then there are the Latino penguins which add some levity, but at that point we had had enough. After the ferocious Sea Lion came to devour Mumbles and my son jumped out of his pants. It was time to go.
My Ratings: Very Offensive / 4
—Stacey Reichard, age 40

Negative - I'm sorry to offend anyone who thought this movie was harmless and cute, but it was incredibly anti-fundamental christianity. I mean, the bad people in the movie referred to each other as brothers, and the head penguin talked about sin, and even quoted the bible changing the God with whatever the name of their penguin God was. Usually I don't get into little nuances in films, but this was blatant. I was embarrassed while watching the movie. Kids get values from movies. The lesson of this movie was that people are different and everyone should be accepted. Of course we all want or kids to think that, but this was obviously grooming kids to except gay rights and marriage. The father penguin used the same kind of language you would imagine a middle class father saying to a son they found out was gay. It was so obvious, I brought it up to a few other people and they said, oh I ignored it because I thought I was being too sensitive. I'm telling you, I’ve been in some of the most liberal campuses ever, and liberals and gay right activists in general hate christians and their values. I read some people say that this film just shows the difference between real christians and fake ones, but don't be fooled. People used to just make fun of fake christians. But people today hate the fundamental, real beliefs of true believers, and true christians are being portrayed as worse and worse in the media. So don't let these slide thinking that your being too sensitive, because it’s gonna get way worse. Lots of people hate christian values (Hollywood) and many of them happen to be the loudest.
My Ratings: Very Offensive / 3
—Nicole Kindred, age 20

There's one on the mainpage, too!

After that, I went to the CAP website, looking for gold. Pretty much everything was tame. In fact, except for things like calling someone a fool being offensive to God, their review seemed rather...Agreeable.

I feel...Unfulfilled.

Also, I gotta laugh at the "Penguins were black" thing. Yeah, something like 99.85% of the hip/hop market is suburban white kids. Hell, by that logic, I'm black. Which will greatly disappoint my parents, whose only hope for me was that I grew up white.

>.>

[Deimos]

I loved Happy Feet. It was one of those movies that really made feel for the protagonist. I get that rarely.

When I discovered what people were saying about that film I was like

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!

[Mantorok]

You didn't think it was just Frodo dances to save Middle-Earth Antarctica?

[szaleniec]

Jan 21, 2010 4:34:06 GMT -5 Amaranth said:

Also, I gotta laugh at the "Penguins were black" thing.

When did fundies jump on the PC bandwagon, anyway?

[HarleyThomas1002]

They did when they can use it to their advantage.

Except it just makes them look worse.

[Turtle]

The lesson of this movie was that people are different and everyone should be accepted. Of course we all want or kids to think that, but this was obviously grooming kids to except gay rights and marriage.

Of course we all want our kids to think everyone should be accepted, except when they're gay. Seriously, how can you say everyone should be accepted and in the next sentence complain about a movie getting kids to 'except' gay rights?

[Hades]

This will probably be the next movie I watch thanks to this thread.