Happy Feet

Happy Feet was available on the airplane back from Ghana, so I decided to watch it.

Okay, so really I just wanted a picture of a penguin on my site.

One criticism that I have of a lot of books and movies is that they're addressing the wrong question. They stage an epic fight between a clearly identifiable and easily personifiable good and evil that is resolved through physical might as well as through the power of an individual (the protagonist) rather than through society as a whole. Compare that to the vast majority of problems the world faces today like poverty, education, health, the environment, or human rights. Who's the evil antagonist to fight against? What physical fight can we have to fix those problems? How can an individual, working alone rather than mobilizing a culture, solve any of those problems?

I like Happy Feet because, in addition to having good music and an adorable protagonist, it's addressing the right question. Much of the plot in the movie has to do with the fact that the penguins don't know the force behind their declining amounts of fish. They resolve it through the power of dance, not by waging war on the humans. Change happens because both sides are able to achieve intercultural understanding and empathize with one another.