March of the Penguins

It's very clear to me why March of the Penguins, a quirky little French documentary, became such a surprise hit, and cleared a path in the snow, so to speak, for the runaway success of Happy Feet. In truth, it was just great timing for a well-made documentary about penguins. Penguins are always going to be popular with humans, compared to, say, armadillos or gnats. We've evolved to find things that resemble our babies adorable, so that we instinctively want to protect them, and with their fat bodies, stubby, ineffectual arms and waddling, toddling gaits, what could be cuter than penguins - except, of course, baby penguins? It's interesting to hear that the original French version actually had voice actors pretending to BE the penguins, presumably rather like in Happy Feet whereas the US release is centred on a solemn Morgan Freeman narrative. The writers know how to hook in an audience, and every opportunity to make the creatures seem more human and thus relatable is taken, to the extent that US right-wingers started pointing to these penguins as great symbols of American values, despite the fact that they're monogamous for only a year, and many decidedly inhuman acts - stealing others' chicks, ignoring or prodding corpses, letting predators do what they will, abandoning young if necessary - are treated in a fumbling manner so that they don't really stick in the mind and the susceptible leave the theatre cooing about how very HUMAN the animals are. Undeniably, though, they're very cute and funny, especially the clumsy chicks, and it is breathtaking how graceful they become under the water. The bizarre cycle nature takes, giving these cumbersome creatures such hardships that they endure everlastingly, yet the sheer good fortune of evolution not putting such a predator as a polar bear in the same environment as these plump meatbags that spend much of the year unable to move if they breed successfully, makes for a very interesting little documentary.