Happy Feet and The Politics of Children's Animation
Man, I love Happy Feet. It's one of the few films I vividly remember watching when I was a child, and this is partially because it takes you on a wild, eventful ride. So much happens throughout its 108-minute runtime, but it also stuck out to me with its clear environmental messages and encouragement of self-expression. While I lightly understood some of the religious themes, it wasn't a few years later that I realized its warnings about religious extremism, though. "Penguin" holds a strong symbolism for practically any religion, and the term is used quite often to mean the norm throughout the movie. "It just ain't Penguin." Phrases like this are said throughout the film by the elder penguins to judge and single out the tap dancing main character, Mumble. He's different from the rest, and this is thought to upset their leading divine entity, the "Great Guin." Because of this, he's blamed for the food shortage, a curse for not conform...
