Reply #114: We certainly didn't find it scary

[NewJeffCT]

What is scary to one person can be amusing, fun or interesting to others. Some are scared of clowns, while others like them, or are amused by them.

My daughter is almost four years old, and she was clapping her hands and dancing to the music throughout the movie. I don't recall any scared children in the theater, and we were at a matinee. When we stopped in the grocery store on the way home, my daughter wanted to get the penguin yogurt they were selling. She has not had any penguin nightmares. The only time she’s had nightmares from watching something at the movies or on TV was when she watched an educational nature show and later woke up crying that she had seen a snake. That will teach me to let her watch educational TV!!

There is nothing in Happy Feet scariness-wise that is worse than your typical Disney movie. I mean, Bambi’s mom dies, the Lion King gets killed by his brother, Snow White gets poisoned, etc.

I saw the old penguin that kicked Mumbles out as more like an old Scotsman – the elder statesman among the elders of the “clan” of penguins. More like the elders in the town from “Footloose” than a black church. Youth rebelling against the ways of the elderly has been a staple of movies and television for almost as long as movies have been around. That it was a black church never crossed my mind, as the penguins sang pop tunes (their “heart songs”) and not gospel music.

And, how is it a parody of blackface when emperor penguins have black faces in real life?