Dancing Penguins.....cultural event of course. Well if there were penguins in real life that could dance that would definitely be a event...a phenomenon. Yet in animation it can still be cultural for the fact that Happy Feet 2 is animation. Young children today aren’t just watching hand drawn 2-D characters on screen. Today children are watching computer animated characters in 3-D. Along with learning of the environment, family, and group dynamics.
In Happy Feet 2 we return to dancing and singing penguins until their habitat is further effected by global warming. Cracking and falling ice causes the penguins “land” to lower creating a bowl effect with no way out or up. Mumble goes to find help to create a passageway up the bowl. Mumble helps a elephant seal out of the ice earlier in the movie and he helps Mumble in return. Penguins and elephant seals dance and sing together to help the penguins below.
This shows children people working together to help one another. Just as firefighters or doctors do everyday. Groups of people helping out one another is part of culture. Many different cultures why this film could be enjoyed worldwide.
Back to the elephant seal Mumble saved his life in front of his children and in front of his son. Family is another big theme in this movie. Mumble’s son Erik is young and does not understand yet why he can’t do certain things. Erik got mad at his father for telling him this but in the end he looks at his dad as a hero. When Mumble when to the elephant seal at first the seal said no but Erik admired his father for trying.
Children look to their parents for example. Children do stray and get mad at their parents from time to time. (Erik is just a little one wait till he’s a teenager Mumble). However that how families are, not everything is always perfect.
Then there’s the side story of the Krill, Bill and Will. I do believe the names were intentional. These Krill set out to see beyond the swarm together as male and male.
There’s a definite bromance going on between them, at least from Bill’s eyes. When Bill sees baby jellyfish he thinks of children and asks Bill “why don’t we have children”.
Bill’s reply “we’re males”.
Will’s reply “we can adopt.”
A funny moment in the movie for today’s generation. I don’t believe this would of happened in earlier family movies. Today our culture is much more accepting of gay culture. Having this moment in the movie reflects this.
Happy Feet 2 is another 3-D family computer animated film. Another of the many that are now the “children” movie standard. Yet the stories still tell of cultural morals like family and helping another while changing to reflect changing views in culture.
Still even the classics are updating. Disney’s The Lion King 3-D was in theaters now The Beauty and the Beast is next to be modernized.
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