Comments kmac has made
"happy feet" misleading
after walking out of "happy feet," my friend and i decided that the movie should be called "happy, then not so happy, then not at all happy, then kind of happy feet". although i am happy to see a children's film that has an environmentalist message, there were definitely other aspects of the film that left me with my mouth wide open.
i felt as though "happy feet" had a strong negetive message towards militant and evangelical religious-types - as seen with the elders of the tribe. to me the film said, not only that humans are having a negetive impact on our environment, but that evangelicals are in extreme denial about the state of our world and won't accept non-conformists or changes in our culture and society (which might be so, but does that need to be part of a children's movie?). i agree with yolanda crous when she mentioned "footloose," it was very much like that but even more extreme in its message and packaged as a movie about happy dancing penguins.
"fern gully" did come up in my conversation with my viewing partner (as in the above comments). we both spoke about how we enjoyed the film, but agreed that it was promoted as a film that had an emphasis on our negetive impact on the environment. "happy feet" is being promoted as a happy-go-lucky film about dancing penguins . . . a little misleading . . . i, personally, had no clue about the film having an environmentalist message until i received the "grist list" last week and did some research for myself.
in terms of the environmental message and the cute dancing penguins, i enjoyed "happy feet" ans thought it was very educational. hopefully kids will walk away, at least, planning on cutting their coke can rings. maybe kids will think about the ramifications of polluting. maybe they'll ask questions about the importance of our ecosystem and the damage that is done when it's disrupted. this is all very important. in terms of the other messages that were so blatently obvious, i was disturbed and rather shocked. for the fact that the film is marketed to children who aren't at the development stage where they can truly form thoughts of their own and separate fact from opinion, "happy feet" is extremely misleading.On A review of Happy Feet, the wildly successful musical-penguin eco-flick posted 2 years, 12 months ago 6 Responses