Cinema Hype

So, we’re in that perfect window between Halloween and Christmas, the time when there are actually more movies to see than there are plausible movie-going hours. It can be a beautiful thing for audiences: Oscar contenders, holiday movies, and winter blockbusters all vying for our attention, and never a dry spot at the theater. It can also be a cutthroat season for movie studios as they try to get their movies into the public consciousness. Some of these movies are going to be bad. Really, really bad, even. If you’re a studio, it can be tough to tell what will catch on, and what will fall flat. There’s one movie coming out, however, that will do well without even trying. On principle alone, Happy Feet can’t fail.

This movie will do well for two reasons. The first is a line of reasoning discovered reasonably recently by studios, but it’s proven itself valuable: the public loves penguins. The actual target audience, the quality of the film, the breed of penguins, and the factual accuracy of the penguin portrayal are irrelevant. Give us birds in tuxedoes, let us watch them swim and slide and sit on their eggs, and we’re rabid for more. I mean, yes, they’d probably bite us if we got too close. And they probably smell like fish. And they’re not nearly as cuddly as–oh, who am I kidding? They look like we should love them and hug them and name them George. There’s nothing we can do about it. Penguins are film gold.

The second reason behind Happy Feet’s imminent success is an older truth about the film industry: the only thing people like more than penguins is dance movies. Let’s face it: there are plenty of terrible movies out there that are saved by choreography. Something about the sense of organized chaos, or maybe a bit of embarrassment at our own left feet, makes groups of dancing people totally mesmerizing. And the dancing in Happy Feet isn’t what you’d call amateur: the penguins’ moves were choreographed and recorded via motion sensors by Savion Glover, urban tap-dancer extraordinaire.

So. What’s a film studio to do? The public loves penguins. The public loves dance movies. The time for a penguin dance movie is long overdue. Don’t you think?