Onward, Christian Penguins: Wildlife Film and the Image of Scientific
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Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 273–279 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc Onward, Christian penguins: wildlife film and the image of scientific authority Rebecca Wexler 80 Cranberry Street, Apartment 6N, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA article info abstract Article history: Within US media reactions to March of the penguins, animal images became an arena for displaced con- Received 14 December 2006 flicts of human interest. This paper examines an intermediary step through which the film became a Received in revised form 1 December 2007 medium for social disagreement: conflict over control of the cultural authority to interpret animal images. I analyze claims to the cultural honorific of science made within disputes over readings of the film as evidence for intelligent design (ID). I argue that published refutations of this reading were largely misguided in that they tended to group arguments-for-ID with a suite of social–allegorical readings of the Keywords: film. By failing to address essential differences between interpretations, critics of the arguments-for-ID Wildlife film necessarily overlooked their problematic and unexamined claim that the film shares the cultural author- Nature documentary Intelligent design ity of science. Furthermore, where critics of the ID readings might have challenged this claim, they often Creationism replicated it instead. This overarching failure critically to assess the status of the film’s scientific authority Science media may have resulted from audience expectations about the genre of wildlife films, the advertising strategy Penguins of the film’s US distributors, and structural ambiguities within the film concerning its status as a scientific representation. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 1. Introduction documentary in US history (behind Fahrenheit 9/11), March depicts the breeding cycle of Emperor penguins in the Antarctic.2 Just like The cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan (Fig. 1), published in The New the displacement implied in Kaplan’s cartoon, the dispute over Yorker on 19 September 2005, plays on contestation over the con- March in the media was more about broad cultural disagreement trol of the use of animal images. In this fictionalized scenario, one than it was about either the film or actual penguins. In this paper, speaking penguin complains to another that its participation in a I examine an intermediary step through which the film became an nature documentary has been distorted. What it thought would arena for disagreement about social agendas: conflict over the cul- be art turned out to be something less desirable. Anthropomor- tural authority to interpret animal images. In particular, I analyze phism through speech renders the subject of injury ambiguous; claims to the cultural honorific of science that were made in sup- the figures might describe penguins, people, or some combination port of different readings of the film. In other words, this paper is of the two. Thus, the cartoon implies that animal images can be- about the cinematic appropriation of the image of scientific come arenas for displaced conflicts of human interest. authority. The penguin theme links Kaplan’s commentary to a contem- Conflict in the media stemmed partially from Christian inter- porary dispute in US media over the interpretation of the film pretations of the film as evidence for intelligent design (ID), the March of the penguins (March).1 Directed by French biologist and allegedly scientific theory that a knowing designer created the uni- filmmaker Luc Jacquet and credited as the second highest grossing verse, and all of its inhabitants, with a discernable purpose. ID is E-mail address: [email protected] 1 The dispute originally at issue in US media was later described in UK media, from which some of my sources are taken. The original film was French and gave the penguins’ voices. As the focus of this paper is a US dispute, I consider only the English version, for which Jordan Roberts wrote a new soundtrack using disembodied voice-over. 2 Miller (2005), Sect. F, p. 2, col. 2; Jacquet (2005). 1369-8486/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.06.001 274 R. Wexler / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 273–279 egy of the film’s US distributors. I also offer an alternative explana- tion of this failure based on my own analysis of ambiguities in the film’s status as a representation of scientific information and perspectives. 2. Misguided critiques: an analysis of media objections to arguments-for-ID Media critics from the secular and scientific press often con- flated arguments-for-ID with other non-scientific religious or so- cial readings of the film. Andrew Sullivan described claims that March was good for evangelical Christians and supportive of heter- osexual monogamy in the same list of complaints as the claim that the film supported ID.9 In a similarly broad grouping of issues, Jon- athan Miller recounted claims that March supported the anti-abor- tion movement, promoted monogamy and ID, and ‘soft-pedaled’ evolution and global warming as explanations of its appeal to con- Fig. 1. Penguins complain of exploitation (Kaplan, 2005; used with the permission servatives.10 David Smith described the ID interpretation of the film of Cartoon Bank). along with other assertions that it supported traditional family val- ues.11 The amalgamation of these issues ultimately impeded the cri- tiques that were launched at them. essentially a new creationism adopted in response to US legal Having conflated a wide variety of readings of the film, critics of pressures concerning educational policies, and modified from its these interpretations were then forced to voice their objections in predecessor primarily through its claim of scientific validity.3 broad and untailored responses that tended to focus on supposedly Viewer postings on one Christian website commented of March, ‘tes- inappropriate projections of social agendas onto the film. After his tifies to a Divine Creator’, ‘an example of our Creator’s design’, and, list of complaints, Sullivan protested, ‘Not everything is political. ‘evidence of a designer’.4 A Christian magazine reviewer reported And not everything is about us’.12 In refutation of his group of unde- of the film, ‘That any one of these eggs survives is ... a strong case sirable claims, Miller offered the US distributors’ insistence that, ‘the for intelligent design’.5 Secular and scientific journals published movie is simply a tale about penguins and that any attempt to divine these and similar quotations alongside heated refutations: ‘If that a deeper meaning is misguided’.13 Similarly, in rebuttal against his is intelligent design, the Big Guy has quite a sense of humor’; and, own collection of objectionable interpretations, Smith quoted US ‘Invite an advocate for ‘‘intelligent design” to [a screening]. After distributor Adam Leipzig as commenting, ‘It’s not a film with a polit- ... ask for an explanation of just what the Designer had in mind ical and social agenda’.14 The subsumption of ID interpretations here’.6 Jacquet protested, ‘I am a scientist ...My film is not supposed within a group of social–allegorical readings inhibited directed to be interpreted in this way’.7 The fact that the US was simulta- objections to these arguments and led instead to broad refutations neously embroiled in its third major court case since the 1960s of social readings of the film in general. regarding the teaching of evolution, and not ID, in public school biol- This broad response to arguments-for-ID simultaneous to other ogy classrooms made critiques of the ID analysis of March all the readings of the film was particularly problematic because the gen- more urgent.8 eral objections raised were often weak. They deplored the projec- Despite their urgency, these critiques were largely misguided in tion of social agendas onto the film. But the film’s allegorical that they tended to group arguments-for-ID with a suite of social– appeal to US religious audiences, whose Puritan genealogies have allegorical readings of the film, thereby ignoring critical differences been passed down by John Bunyan’s Christian allegory Pilgrim’s between interpretations. In Section 2 of this paper, I argue that by progress alongside the Bible, seems both clear and justifiable.15 failing to address these differences, critics of arguments-for-ID One minister who organized church trips to the film commented overlooked their central weakness: lack of justification for claims on this allegorical appeal, ‘The penguin is falling behind, is like some of the scientific authority of the film. Further, where they might Christians falling behind. The path changes every year, yet they find have challenged this claim, critics of the ID readings often repli- their way, is like the Holy Spirit’.16 Journalist Michael Medved attrib- cated it instead. In Section 3, I suggest that the failure of both sides uted the film’s success partially to feelings of exclusion from main- of the ID conflict critically to assess the status of the film’s scientific stream media on the part of a broad swath of Christian audiences authority may have resulted in part from audience expectations who feel their traditional family values of self-sacrifice, monogamy, about the genre of wildlife films coupled with the advertising strat- and childrearing are underrepresented in mainstream cinema.17 3 For an in depth discussion of the history and theory of intelligent design, see Tammy Kitzmiller, et al., plaintiffs, v. Dover Area School District, et al., defendants (2005). 4 Helms (n.d.), Viewer comments. 5 Coffin (2005). 6 Goodman (2005); Kennedy (2005), p.