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Abstract

This paper presents research into science fiction tropes and stereotypes by applying these common themes to the movie, Happy Feet. While the movie is considered a family or children’s movie for its fun animation, musical score, and happy-go-lucky dancing penguins, it has some interesting underlying themes that begged to be explored. A few authors have written about the environmental or ecological impact the movie could have, but this topic was chosen to investigate the somewhat strange religious themes that permeated throughout the film. It was discovered that because of these religious themes and some seemingly out-of-place references to science fiction stereotypes, the movie itself could be considered a part of the science fiction genre. Research into different kinds of religions and tropes of science fiction was conducted and the conclusion was that Happy Feet was a “science fiction” movie based on its handling of religion. 2

Aliens, Churches, and Penguins: A New Look at Warner Brothers’ Happy Feet

When one thinks of Happy Feet, what usually comes to mind is tap dancing, funky music, and funny Latino adelie penguins. What tend to go over audiences’ heads are the conflicting motifs that the film displays. The movie is about a hero journey or spirit quest overcoming and changing an oppressive religious society, but it’s also an environmental statement to the audience. Then there are the odd science fiction shout outs throughout the course of the movie that don’t seem to fit with the religious themes at all. As the protagonist, Mumble, journeys towards, not only finding the lost fish, but his own acceptance of himself as someone who is different, these odd bits and pieces seem to clash on the surface. While children enjoy the brightly animated dancing penguins, keen observers may scratch their heads in confusion. The movie’s seeming inability to make up its mind about religion, spirituality, and science fiction is baffling until one looks way beneath the surface and starts to code the film differently than just a happy-go-lucky romp through Antarctica. Happy Feet seems to tell a fairly familiar tale of the individual seeking spiritual and personal fulfillment because he is unable to find it in an oppressive religion-based social organization who judges and exiles more than it nurtures and includes. The added science fiction aspect seems odd and out of place when looking at the film from a religious aspect. However, because of its treatment of organized religion and New Age spirituality, Happy Feet takes on the characteristics of a true science fiction work, not just a movie with tributes to other science fiction.

Despite the almost explicitly sexual mating theme (a penguin utilizes his or her unique heart song to attract a mate) the penguins are devoutly religious, taking on characteristics of

Christianity. They worship the “Great Guin” who is said to give and take away food and the seasons depending on the penguins’ actions and lifestyles. There is a leader named Noah, and 3 although he is called “Brother Noah” by the rest of the community, he is quite obviously the leader, and more importantly, the moral compass of the community. The penguin religion serves as the social structure of the penguin community and it works because everyone is on board with it. Religion fulfills “a desire for community with an emphasis upon a shared understanding, connectedness, and a sense of family,” according to authors studying the New Age movement in

England (Prince and Riches 115). No one feels oppressed or judged, the penguins are happy because everyone has the same values, beliefs, and morals. Enter Mumble.

Mumble is unassuming as he taps his way into the world for the first time, but almost immediately, his “happy feet” are deemed immoral and wrong and he is told to stop. Soon after that, the community is shocked to find that Mumble cannot sing, and therefore has no heart song.

While many religions, Christianity included, claim to be accepting of anyone, there is a contradiction between religion and individualism. Religion is “acceptance and agreement in the population concerned—which is the antithesis of individualism and tolerance” (114). Although he is allowed to remain in the penguin community, he is socially rejected from the moment he cannot perform “proper” penguin duties. Not only that, he is told explicitly twice by authority figures that what he can and can’t do make him un-penguin, forever branding him as an outsider.

When Mumble asks his father why he shouldn’t dance in front of the other penguins, Memphis answers, “it just ain’t penguin” (Happy Feet 2006). Despite this, he grows up and matures and there are few problems, until mating season begins for the newly graduated penguins of course.

Mumble cannot attract a mate in the traditional way and that, along with his radical ways and heathen friends finally impose on him a life of banishment. Instead of being cowed by the religious authority that exiles him, he challenges it and begins a journey towards solving the food shortage mystery and finding his own personal fulfillment. 4

When Mumble is at his most lost, after he is completely ostracized by his classmates and his best friend Gloria, he stumbles upon the adelie penguin community with their guru, Lovelace.

He narrowly escapes being a sea leopard’s lunch and runs into Ramón and his penguin posse,

The Amigos. And so begins the second religious motif: the New Age movement and spirituality in opposition to organized religion. The adelies directly parallel the New Age movement because of the immediate social intimacy they have with Mumble (Prince and Riches 112). This may be odd because he is about twice their height, still covered in down, and tap dances, but unlike the judgmental emperor community, the adelies are accepting, loving, and vivacious. This idea is later cemented when the first thing Ramón says to Gloria is “I know size can be daunting, but don’t be afraid. I love you!” (Happy Feet 2006).

Perhaps what starts Mumble on his radical thinking is the fact that the adelie penguins dance without shame and sing just as beautifully as the emperors. Mumble learns immediately that what passes as penguin is quite different to different penguin communities and that dancing can be just as penguin as singing. Soon after tobogganing down a steep slope and seeing a human crane, Mumble decides there’s more at work here than simply an angry penguin god. With many questions and no answers, he goes and sees Lovelace at Ramón’s suggestion. Lovelace, the undisputed leader in this area, stands tall upon a pile of pebbles (currency and courtship to the adelies) and gives advice for the payment of a pebble per question. His answers are respected and believed because of his talisman, a plastic soda can ring that was allegedly bestowed on him by the “mystic beings.” Who or what the mystic beings are is not elaborated on at the time, but the audience understands that the plastic ring is of human creation and probably got caught around his neck while swimming. This “religious specialist” who can commune with the spiritual realm is very much the part of the New Age movement, giving this section of the movie a spirit 5 quest feel (Prince and Riches 117). Mumble then spends the rest of the movie searching, through this epic quest, for the answers to everything and succeeds by the conclusion of the film, having solved the mystery of the fish and found belonging in his home community.

The third and final motif of Happy Feet is science fiction. Humans are referred to as aliens, skuas are abducted, and the penguins finally make contact when the humans come to the bottom of the Earth in their bright, unnatural “space suits” and flying machine. These may have been writers’ tributes to beloved science fiction moments, but because the similarities don’t stop there, these actually hint at much subtler meaning in the entire movie. To borrow words from religious studies scholar Steven Engler, science fiction tells a story about “what it means to be a human being; about human limitations (e.g. ignorance, suffering, disease, and death); and about ways to transcend those limits” (108). Change the “humans” in that sentence to “penguins” and you have the plot of Happy Feet. Using this basic understanding of the purpose of science fiction, the rest of the movie can be analyzed for science fiction themes based on its treatment of the aforementioned religious motifs.

According to Farah Mendlesohn, an expert in the field of science fiction and fantasy, there are three principle plot lines to science fiction: “the incredible invention, the future war, and the fantastic journey,” the last of these which “offered possibilities for the exploration of religion and faith” (265). Happy Feet is indeed a fantastic journey. As stated before, Mumble travels to solve the mystery of the disappearing fish and the whole movie is about his drive for personal and spiritual fulfillment. What was not emphasized however, was where exactly

Mumble was journeying: an alien world that Mumble has to trek through vast sheets of ice and empty ocean to get to. He also volunteers to go find this new world merely minutes after he finds out it actually exists (a boat breaks through the ice where he and his companions are standing 6 and he makes a split-second decision to chase it). This means that the science fiction plot of a

“fantastic journey” can be taken quite literally because it takes place in another world that is alien to the penguins.

Another look at Mumble is necessary as well. In light of his repressive upbringing, the audience could expect Mumble to be unhappy, angry, and violent, but instead he is creative, inventive, intelligent, tenacious, and a natural-born leader. He talks his way out of being a skua’s lunch when he is just a toddler. He has an incredible talent when it comes to dancing and even when it is discouraged, never stops doing it. Mumble’s personality is perfect for undertaking a quest to save his unloving and unforgiving people. Mendlesohn notes that a missionary or priest figure is a popular protagonist in science fiction and posits that “the [most common] trope [in science fiction] is the missionary as destroyer of faith, however inadvertently” (268). Mumble is that missionary and outsider in Happy Feet and his destruction of faith in the film is completely inadvertent. His goal is never to destroy the religion of the penguins, but to be welcomed into their community and, at the end, to save their lives. In a true science fiction work, Mumble probably would have had to have been a martyr to finally make the penguin community listen to him and change its ways, making him messianic as well. However, killing the protagonist, especially when it’s a cute, fluffy penguin, is probably strictly off-limits for a children’s film.

Overall, science fiction’s treatment of religion is generally one of “polite contempt,” because to it, science and technology trump blind faith and devotion (264). Science fiction generally depicts religion as primitive and uses it to demonstrate the level of civilization a race is at (264). There is an interesting and deliberate nod in this direction in Happy Feet. The first alien

(human) building Mumble sees is an abandoned church on top of a hill with the sun peeking through the clouds behind it. Most Christian reviewers of this movie saw this as a purposeful 7 attack on religion itself, but it is more of an indication, like Mendlesohn says, of how evolved the human race is, especially compared to the pious penguin communities. While the church is abandoned out of necessity when the humans left the barren wasteland of Antarctica, its desertion is symbolic of the humans transcending religion and turning towards science and technology. While this is not completely true out of the context of the movie (there are obviously millions of religious humans on the planet today), it does make the humans in the film seem more like aliens and, in comparison to the penguins, superior in many aspects.

Finally, the statements that the film seems to make about religion also fit the techniques of science fiction. In the emperor penguin community, there is conformity across the board. In fact, in terms of conveying a society that conforms to everything that a religious leader says, penguins were the perfect choice because they all look identical anyway. This physical conformity is paralleled in the fact that the penguins don’t really think for themselves. As asserted before, this conformity in thinking is necessary for the penguins’ established social order, but it also doesn’t solve the fish problem, which is Mumble, the free thinker’s, job.

Mendlesohn states that “religion is seen [by science fiction] less as a mode of thought and more as a lack of thought” (266). Happy Feet is definitely making a statement about the danger of restricted thought when it comes to problem solving and general day saving. Mumble is different in every way. He thinks freely and creatively, retains his down from childhood—making him easily distinguishable from the rest of the emperors—and has different eyes than all the other penguins. Every single other penguin has brown or black eyes (Lovelace’s are red) except for

Mumble, who has bright blue. This much more human appearance symbolizes Mumble’s ability to see so much differently than everyone else and also maybe points towards Mumble being the only one who can communicate with the humans. Having a more human characteristic makes 8 him seem slightly more human than his fellow penguins. In following this train of thought,

Mendlesohn also says later that “religion is repeatedly depicted as dangerous, diverting humans

(and aliens) from the path of reason and true enlightenment” (269). Mumble can literally see right through the facades of the penguin with his human eyes, giving him his individuality and ability to save the day at the conclusion of the film. Happy Feet undoubtedly depicts religion as dangerous in general because of its intolerance of new ideas and change. In the end, science fiction debunks religion when the aliens appear and are proven to be, not only real, but the cause of the penguin’s problems, not the Great Guin nor the sins of Mumble.

Happy Feet is certainly a children’s movie worth seeing for the cute animations, brilliant musical score, and tap dancing fun, but only children could be oblivious to the weaker aspects such as the plot (humans figuring out immediately that the penguins are dancing because they are starving is a bit of a stretch) and the contradictions of religious and science fiction motifs alongside of the feel-good theme of being true to one’s nature. These contradictions don’t clash so much when Happy Feet is read as a science fiction text due to its treatment of religion. While seeing humans as the aliens may be slightly disturbing, especially from an environmental stand point, the movie simply makes more sense from this point of view, especially with its strong religious themes and how open they are to interpretation by the audience. In the end, when stripped of everything else, it is obvious that the film has all of the necessary components of a great science fiction flick: aliens, abduction, and first contact.

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Works Cited

Engler, Steven. “Science Fiction, Religion, and Social Change.” The Influence of Imagination.

Ed. Lee Easton and Randy Schroeder. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008.

108-17. Print.

Happy Feet. Dir. George Miller. Perf. Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh

Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, Anthony LaPaglia, Magda Szubanski, Steve

Irwin. Warner Brothers Pictures, 2006. DVD.

Mendlesohn, Farah. “Religion and Science Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Science

Fiction. Ed. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2003. 264-75. Print.

Prince, Ruth and David Riches. “Back to the Future: The New Age Movement and Hunter-

Gatherers.” Anthropos 94 (1999): 107-20. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov 2012.