Conservatives attack animated penguin movie as global-warming propaganda
Cultural conservatives, led by CNN's Glenn Beck, Fox News' Neil Cavuto, and syndicated talk-show host Michael Medved, have all criticized Happy Feet, the new Warner Bros. animated movie about Mumble, the tap-dancing penguin, because they say the movie is laced with liberal overtones and tries to "indoctrinate" children. Specifically, conservatives claim the movie is pushing a global-warming agenda. Yet the film makes no references to global warming. Instead, the movie's conservationist subplot revolves around Mumble's attempt to combat man-made pollution and overfishing in his quest to help his fellow penguins. The blockbuster movie, which has already earned more than $100 million in U.S. ticket sales, is silent regarding the issue of global warming.
Nonetheless, Cavuto and Beck, who referred to the film as "propaganda," both complained that the movie amounts to "an animated version of An Inconvenient Truth," a reference to former Vice President Al Gore's critically acclaimed documentary about the threats posed by global warming. Cavuto said that while viewing Happy Feet, he "half-expected to see an animated version of Al Gore pop up." Cavuto also stated that he found the movie "offensive" and asked whether it pushed "a far-left message."
Medved, who is also a professional film critic, complained in a November 17 entry on his Townhall.com weblog that "the propagandistic theme suggests that the biggest menace for the lovable penguins is the human race -- stealing the fish on which the birds depend, or ruining planet earth through pollution and global warming." [Emphasis added.]
None of the commentators supplied any examples from the movie to support their allegation that Happy Feet pushes a liberal, global-warming agenda. In fact, no scenes from the movie mention the issue. Happy Feet is void of any global-warming references, there are no obvious allusions to it, and global warming is not one of the movie's themes. Global warming plays no part in the film.
It was informative and good to see...I will skip 'Happy Feet' because it looks awful...just like news media morons who conclude there is a 'far left message' when there is none...
"Happy Feet" is awesome! And hilarious!
You know what else I think is hilarious? The fact that these conservatives are scared of a little cartoon movie. They are as paranoid and afraid as they wish some of their viewers WERE about terrorism so they would vote republican.
I need to archive this stuff to show my kids, to let them know how afraid conservatives were of a little cartoon movie.
While I didn't like the lack of units and scale on his charts, the evidence is startling. For you naysayers, we'll know in the next 10 years if he's right or not...keep an eye of Greenland's ice shelf.
If you live in Miami I'd start thinking about moving.
First we had those delightful, live action penguins, proving once and for all that there is an "Intelligent" designer behind everything that lives, in last years, "March of the Penguins". Then we had the story of the two evil, degenerate, sodomite, same sex penguins trying to warp and pervert the mind of an abandoned penguin chick in the book, "And Tango Makes Three". (Is that right? Are they called chicks?). Now we have more of the latter, prattling on and on about global warming, over fishing and promoting godless communism and secular progressive lifestyles in this abomination called "Happy Feet". I've had enough!
when the penguins sang "Silent Night" with the words changed.
The penguins have joined the War on Christmas, has anyone told O'Reilly?
The penguins weren't Christians. They had a fictitious mythology. Why/how could they sing the real lyrics to Silent Night when in the story they don't know of or believe in a Jesus or any of that?
I can see how it bothered you but it wouldnt have made sense for them to sing to real "Silent Night" rather than a parody.
should make a movie about penguins who hate non-christians and science, and who worship violence, the free market and the Almighty Dollar.
Then let those two movies fight it out in the marketplace and see who wins.
about penguins and their miscegenation. Because they do in fact wear the colors of miscegenation on their body. HAH!
Perhaps the masses have been watching Batman too long.
Unite! Throw Oreos at Penguins! That will show them.
The penquins in that movie were violent and quite possibly psychotic, I thought they were freaking hilarious.
It's sad that this ("Happy Feet") is all Conservatives can come up with at this point: Attacking a children's movie that has a message. (Faking shock) Omigawd?! Where were these fat heads when Pauly Shore was making movies, or Steve Guttenberg for that matter?
I d0n't remember them getting their panties in a bunch when "V for Vendetta" came out. Now, there's a great movie with an equally powerful message, depending on how you viewed it.
I'm an idiot: PENGUINS RULE!!
The overfishing and pollution of our oceans, which is even more indisputable than global warming, is now reduced to propoganda???
When it doesn't agree with your worldview, yeah, it's now propaganda.
Why can't these people just go to a movie and enjoy it with their kids? It's a fun movie, from what I've read, and a family friendly movie as well. Tap dancing penguins. Come on, that's good wholesome fun, and here we have conservatives decrying it.
Just what is THAT? Sounds as realistic as that "compassionate conservatism" drivel the GOP drove on about. Sort of like "conservative think tank."
The movie was actually pretty good - better than I thought it would be & had my husband & me laughing at the adult jokes & the kids laughing at just about everything. So now it's bad to teach your kids not to litter? One of the penguins in the movie was being choked by a 6-pack plastic ring thingy that was stuck around his neck. Offensive? no - not nearly as offensive as people who don't find pollution & sharing the earth with it's other inhabitants to be important. Brainwashing my ass - they are just idiots.
because a study that came out around the same time as the movie suggests a "collapse" (their word) of fish populations within 50 years, due to overfishing and pollution. Not even Beck, Cavuto and Medved are dumb enough to challenge that part of the movie so hard as there is fresh science supporting it. So, they bash the general "global warming" claim, which they fail to understand in the first place.
Beck, Cavuto and Medved vs. The Penguins.
An attack on creatures that crap through their feathers by creatures that crap through their lips.
Hmm . . . filtering science through the lens of state-sponsored ideology . . . now where have I heard that before?
Medved's review isn't as such, but more of a personal thesis attacking the harms of being different and the notion of global warming.
Should the film be rated 'P' for 'Propaganda'? Or rated 'E' for 'Environmental message'?
Next thing you know they will be saying that all these animated penguins are trying to turn your children gay, like SpongeBob square pants.
The War on Penguins has begun!
Were these Troglodytes the least bit concerned about the ham-handed Christian symbolism in The Chronicles of Narnia? I don't think so.
These self-proclaimed cultural nags are just looking for some Mickey Mouse cause to justify their existence.
What about the environmental message from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, especially in "The Two Towers"?
just how family-unfriendly the whole concept of dancing penguins are. Remember these guys?: [link to belle.designwest.com]
I saw it as a child, and it scarred me for life.
Obviously we need to arm the penguins, perhaps with semi-automatics to deal with the seals and the liberal types with Hollywood values. II don't know about guns to the Hispanic ones though. I'm not sure they got into Antarctica legally. Maybe if we built a fence between the Ross Ice Shelf and Argentina we could keep those little buggers in their place. Plus, outlaw dancing - that would be a nice touch like in "Footloose."
You have got to be kidding me!
First of All Global Warming is a FACT
Second, IT"S A CHILDREN'S MOVIE! A simple cute movie about tap dancing penguin, how in holy hell can anyone think of politizing it?
Have you ever hear of subtext? They do not have to outright say Global Warming to reference it. I have not seen the movie the myself but it does sound awful. And the message that Man is the biggest threat to the enviroment and other animal life is not somewting I would want my kids seeing.
Maybe FOX News will make a nice animated film about ostriches for you to take the kids to.
I believe your moniker is quite fitting. You wouldn't want some terrible idea like the fact that humans have had an impact on the environment sully your children's minds.
Yes, that's right we have no responsibility for our sppecies blatant impact upon the planet. Name me another species that destroys other species' habitats on the scale that we do?
This is one of those insane Republican doublethink issues. The party that lectures us about personal responsibility refuses to even CONSIDER the idea that we are RESPONSIBLE for the dreadful state of the earth and that we can do anything to at all remedy the very real destruction. We dare to advance the notion that corporations and people should be responsible for their impacts upon the earth, and the right screams "propaganda."
You suck.
Who will you be telling your kids IS the biggest to the environment? Penguins, maybe?
What I find funny is that the "conservatives" aren't taking issue with, what I felt, were obvious religious overtones that I think were clearly insulting to the devout...the Penguins are brought to mass hysteria by the words of the old/wise penguins who feel that they have behaved well and have honored their "wind god" (I think they call it that..some one please correct me on the name if you know it) and that they should be rewarded as a result with healthy fish stocks...the population sings and harmonizes like a good sect of Christianity but dancing is forbidden..so much so that Mumble is ostracized because of it..because he is different and goes against the existing social order...the social themes in this film parallel our human lives so much I thought the movies was brilliant...god forbid you equate any level of human respect to animals...they are after all created merely to keep man company if you read Genisis....if we were to grant them a high level of respect, much of what we do to feed ourselves and live is brought into question...
Finally, what I think is equally funny is that the "conservative" response mimics exactly what the movie was trying to highlight ...the wise old ones just can't operate in today's society and when their premises are threatened they fight back and use fear to usher in control once again...
Thank God (or your preferred deity) for Michael Medved! What would we do if we didn’t have him to help us spot such leftist propaganda hidden in kids’ movies? Unfortunately his article doesn’t go far enough in exposing how frequently such cultural propaganda occurs. He should have also mentioned “Shrek” and “Shrek II”, which promote marriage by non-humans (that is, Ogres) and cross species relationships (between donkey and the fire-breathing dragon) which result in a litter of mutant babies born out-of-wedlock. Once again the lefrt is tying to promote “alternative lifestyles” right under our noses.
This kind of hidden propaganda can also be found in the more recent kid movie “Over the Hedge” which decries suburban life and its impact on cute woodland creatures (not to mention vilifying real estate agents as sadistic psychos guilty of animal cruelty). Once again, evil humans are destroying the environment.
None of this should be a surprise, the movie Bambi was one of the first kids’ movies to insert leftist propaganda, taking a shot (pun intended) at hunters, and by extension, the NRA. That movie scarred me for life. I can’t hunt, and I’m still unable to eat venison.
So thank you Michael Medved. With your help, maybe we can have more kids’ movies without propaganda of any kind, like that Narnia movie you recommended a while back.
It sounds like the movie is just bringing awarness of how filthy humans are.
About Conservative penguins called 'Anal Retentive Fascist Aquatic Birds Walking In Circles' That sounds fun!
I'd really like to meet him in a parking lot.
"Defiant in the face of unjust rejection, Mumble and his true friends set out to find...Osama bin Laden.."
Hell, President Numb Nuts can't find him, might as well give the cartoon penguins a chance.
Townhall and Medved decry eevil Disney anti-2nd Amendment propaganda!
Too bad Captain Planet's no longer on TV. These idiots would have a hissie!