Over the past 20 years, Hollywood has introduced environmentally conscientious media to tackle the changing climate and to appeal to the public’s growing awareness of environmental issues. This new media integrates environmental or “green” themes into stories to address increasingly pertinent environmental concerns. George Miller’s Happy Feet is an example.
Happy Feet’s leading penguin is Mumble, a unique bird who cannot sing and dances and taps his feet. In the penguin world, the ability to sing (or in some cases, rap) is crucial. Because of his lack of vocal ability, he is often looked down upon and ostracized by his peers and the colony elders.
During his adventures, Mumble is caught in an avalanche and discovers a “monster” that is a human excavator. In further pursuit of learning more about humans, Mumble meets Lovelace who teaches him more about humans and displays the harmful effect of human littering. Later, Mumble is captured and put in captivity and is later released back into the wild, where he leads researchers to his colony and they learn about environmental challenges related to the Antarctic wildlife.
The movie preaches the underlying message that everyone is unique in their own way and everybody has their own gifts. But more importantly, it contains many references to climate change and impending environmental complications.
The environmental issue addressed in this movie is the negative human impact on the animals in the Antarctic, namely overfishing and other human-created issues such as littering. Throughout the film, it is mentioned that the fish supply that the penguins are reliant on has been dwindling to the point where colony members may have to fight over or divide up the fish and other species of wildlife are also struggling to eat. It becomes more and more dire as the movie goes on.
Lovelace, the film’s wise man, wears a 6-pack plastic ring that he claims is a special gift bestowed to him by the humans. After he is almost strangled to death by it, he reveals that it got snagged on him while he was fishing and graphically displays the harmful effects littering on wildlife.
The solution this movie offers to the problem of human impact and overfishing is simple- wake up and pay attention. Look at the effect of human consumption and waste is having on wildlife, from the starving seabirds to litter being caught on wildlife. Be aware that these actions have consequences and the animals are the ones who pay for it first.
This first solution is easier said than done, so the movie offers up the secondary solution of research and policy: Research the environmental impact humans are having on places like the Antarctic and then make a call to action for governments to implement policies and adjust levels of consumption to lessen the environmental impacts. While the specifics of the policies and the effectiveness of them were largely left up to the viewers’ imaginations, the film still offered up at least a glimpse into one of the many ways environmental issues could be addressed.
Happy Feet is an animated musical featuring singing and dancing penguins. This in of itself is distracting from the serious issue of negative environmental impact. They throw in some romance and a good message about how being different is a good thing, but this ultimately distracts from the important issues at hand. However, this is intentional. This is how the movie roped viewers in to illuminate the issues of harmful human impacts and overfishing in Antarctica. Parents and their children went to go see this movie because it was about an adorable fluffy penguin who was different than his peers and then they were smacked in the face with the important message about what we as humans are doing our environment and wildlife.
The fact that this is a children’s movie makes this premise even more impactful. Children are the future of our society, the researchers and policymakers of the next generation. Showing them the harmful effects of overfishing and human waste can get their gears going to help them become passionate and educated about climate change and the environment in which they live. This seems to have been the goal of the move from the get-go.
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