Crazy Stable

Departing from our house-centered narrative for a pressing ideological matter, it has come to our attention, by way of the New York Times, that the movie March of the Penguins has been turned by conservative groups into "an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars"--monogamy, life is precious, Intelligent Designer and all that, with the added bonus of "soft-peddling topics like evolution and global warming." Of course, the filmmakers deny such ulterior motives, but frankly, there is plenty sinister to be found by both Left (no pun intended) and Right in this seemingly innocuous flick about the plucky Arctic birdies. I will leave it to future editions of Cahiers du Cinema to sort out truth from speculation, but meanwhile, here are:

This  subversive "documentary":

10. offers implicit support for gay adoption in its depiction of men tenderly nurturing eggs in the absence of any females.

9.  tacitly promotes a positive view of global warming, because a lone baby penguin quickly freezes to death, whereas in several more decades it would merely shiver.

8.  puts forth a thinly veiled advertisement for Scientology, as the penguins march in lockstep over the ice, in demented-looking and seemingly leaderless unison, notably without the aid of psychiatric drugs.

7.  undercuts two-parent families, by depicting females officiously taking over egg care en masse from males.

6.  reflects our depraved Zeitgeist, by depicting sex-crazed creatures willing to procreate with precarious resources for the support of their offspring.

5.  reinforces “looks-ism,” as the audience is encouraged to root for the “cute” penguins versus the mean-looking seal trying to eat them.

4.  cynically exploits the evident lack of prompt Federal aid to these distressed penguins for short-term political gain.

3.  avoids any honest conversation about the role of racism through the clever ploy of depicting a community whose members are all black and white at the same time.

2.  dodges the issue of whether penguins really have a constitutional “right to privacy.”

And the number-one hidden agenda of “March of the Penguins”:

1. It promotes atheism, because no benign Creator would ask mothers to travel all that way for a seafood dinner and back only to vomit it into their offspring’s mouths.