Happy Feet:
It’s OK to be different
Ina country filled with many different nationalities, you would think that being different would be no big deal, but it is. We believe that everyone should look, act, and talk the same way and we treat them differently if they don’t. In the movie Happy Feet, viewers are introduced to the Emperor Penguins, a group of penguins that are born to sing, all except for Mumble, who was born to dance.
Society looks down on people who don’t fit into their idea of normal or acceptable. The individuals that don’t conform to what our society views as being acceptable are treated like outcasts. In Happy Feet, Mumble was kicked out of Emperor Land because he wouldn’t stop dancing. His father tells him that he needs to stop dancing and sing like everyone else. Although his mother and Gloria (his only friend) like Mumble just the way he is, No one else understands him.
We live in a society of stereotypes. Since birth, we have been subjected to those stereotypes, without even realizing that it was happening. Girls wear pink, boys wear blue, men don’t cry and you must be skinny to be beautiful, these are a few of the most common stereotypes that we deal with everyday. In Happy Feet, the Emperor Penguins had never seen a dancing penguin, the penguins in their community sang. Mumble didn’t fit in with their stereotype of how penguins are to behave, dancing just wasn’t penguin behavior.
Mumble was shunned by his community and his father for being different. They didn’t understand him or see how he could be of any value in their community. Our society is like that also, we treat people that are different than us like they are outcast. There is no place for them in our society. We don’t see the value that they may have as being beneficial to us.
We tend to be uncomfortable or intimidated by people that are different than what we are used to. The elder penguins in Happy Feet felt uncomfortable around Mumble because he was different...