Happy Feet are Gay Feet

Shout out to Oz for informing me of the stupidest of stupid controversies surrounding the children's movie, Happy Feet. I found a review that is so absurd I had to share it. I don't think this guy even saw the movie. Read the article, then come back here for my rebuttal. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

1. “This may be the darkest, most disturbing feature length animated film ever offered by a major studio.” Didn’t this guy see Pocahontas with its songs about killing the natives? Or Bambi where Bambi kills another deer to win his girl's affection? Those are far more disturbing than a few chase scenes. The movie rating described the danger as “mild peril.” I don’t know what the hell he’s talking when he says the movie leaves people feeling guilty. No single child is going to leave that movie in tears because his favourite food is fish sticks. If it makes adults feel guilty, good.

2. “There’s also scenes of a penguin captured for a zoo and tormented to the point of mental incapacity by unfeeling people… no movie for kids has gone so far in trying to induce guilt for membership in species homo sapiens.” Dude! We should feel guilty about penning animals up so we can pay $30 to stare at them for three minutes. And Mumble wasn’t tormented, he was suffering from a language barrier. And I maintain that movies where the humans actively kill the characters (Bambi, Old Yeller) are far more evil than Happy Feet. I’ll bet the hunter who killed Bambi’s mommy enjoyed his meal, whereas the humans in Happy Feet work to save the penguins (once they realize their folly). And if I could meet the guy who wrote this article - not that I want to, he’s probably creep in person - I tell him that humans are the biggest menace for the lovable penguins. In fact, the biggest menace for every living thing on earth is the human race. I hate, hate, hate, hate people who are so ignorant as to believe that we (humans) have no effect of the world outside our doors.

3. Hmm, which God should the penguins worship? And I assume he was called the Great Guin (as in penGuin), but maybe it was the Great Wind, ‘cause Antarctica is pretty damn windy. I didn’t see the church as a menacing artifact of humanity. I think the giant oil tankers and discarded whale skeletons were the more menacing evidence of humans. A church simply shows that humans lived, worshipped, and died there – kind of like the penguins do.

4. I think it’s awesome that the author waits until the paragraph about the supposed homosexual subtext to mention that Mumble is voiced by Elijah Wood. As if this lends credence to his theory. Is this whole gay thing because Mumble likes to dance and is voiced by Elijah Wood? What if he wanted to play football and was voiced by someone less ambiguous? Would he still be gay?

One thing that makes me question if he even say the movie is his statement that, “An ardent love affair is frustrated for no apparent reason, with the main character’s inamorata choosing a crude, fat penguin she cares nothing about and producing many progeny.” That is so not what happened. There is an exchange between Mumble and the girl while she is standing next to the fat guy and is surrounded by penguin chicks, that goes something like:

Girl: You remember the fat guy? We’re teaching these baby penguins to sing
Mumble: Oh, so you didn’t mate with the fat guy?
Girl: No, I didn’t mate with anyone

Seriously, how could he miss all that? I think this guy is reading too much into everything in this film. There are so many other things that are worthy of and deserve criticism, but this is not one of them (and I realize that criticizing this guy is also not on that list of worthy things, but I couldn’t resist).