Enjoyable with some nagging concerns about racial representation

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2007)

Happy Feet was a visual pleasure. I cried and laughed and wanted to dance. At a number of points throughout however, I felt myself cringing about the way the film racialized the animal populations. I still haven't put my finger on what it is that bugs me. I haven't decided if the film is as self aware as I'd like to think it is with its environmentalist critique of globalization, oil and fishing industries. I suspect it is using ethnicity to fill out the animated penguin story but risks making the Latino and African histories and people that it references seem "closer to nature" and unfortunately, primitive. Icky implication.There is a chance the film is actually delivering a complaint about the effects of imperialism on humans through the impact globalization has on penguins. Maybe viewers will care more about fuzzy animals than humans but I'm not sure this was the point.I'm more curious about how a popular film that is making a moral statement CAN anamorphize animals across racial and ethnic lines and be as in command of those representations as any other component of the film.