December 5, 2018
Movie Thoughts: “Happy Feet”
We were watching a movie the girls got from the library. In this movie, the hero is searching for why his people are starving, the elders don’t like his “different ways” and command him to stop so that their “God” will restore the food supply, and the hero refuses so is “kicked out” by the elders. On his quest, he discovers another predator is taking their food and appeals to them to bring back the food using his “different ways” and since this is so uncharacteristic of his people, the other predators try to fix the problem (and they end up fixing it).
I’d heard mixed review about this movie. Some said it was a “cute little movie” and had some adult humor, yes (I will say; the use of older classic songs and caricatures of famous singers from the previous generations’ era is neat).
One of the most common negatives I heard was that it was sacrilegious and projects a negative view of authority. Check and check from one point of view.
But there’s the other point of view. The one my kids came up with. (I’m a homeschool mom who loves to find teaching moments in everything… so we usually discuss movies after watching them. I choose to use these discussions to teach literature basics – analyze, review, react. Everyone is involved and gets to support or debate the others’ summary. We “review” songs, movies, stories, and even cartoons.)
This is what they got from “Happy Feet:”
- Mumble was born with the difference because God (represented in the movie by “the Great Guin”) knew that the humans were taking too much fish and that something different would be the only way for the humans to take notice of one animal.
- The reason Mumble has the encounter with the birds is to cause his curiosity to spike and him to believe that the “aliens” have a “better nature” and want to fix things.
- This is why he is not discouraged by discovering that the humans are taking all the fish and left a sea of trash (even though one of his buddies is almost strangled by said trash) – rather he is determined to ask them to stop. He believes they are good-natured.
- Rather than Mumble’s “fancy feet” being something against the “Great Guin,” it was the plan of the “Great Guin” for Mumble to be different, catch the human’s eye, and cause them to fix the problem they caused.
- My girls believe this movie shows how God prepares unexpected people to do great things in often unexpected ways. It champions determination, the beauty of our differences, honesty, and love.
That is what I like to see when I watch it too. Overly simplistic? Maybe, but then simplicity is often the outlook of most children and sometimes the simple is used to confound the wise. I pray my children will always “look for the good” in people, movies, songs, stories, and life so that they will find it.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you later…
~Nancy Tart