March, Penguins, March

I finally saw March of the Penguins - the docu-hit movie. For those of you who haven't seen it -- it's a documentary about the life cycle of penguins and the lengths they go to in order to continue the species.

First, they all march, sometimes 70 miles, day and night to their breeding ground. Sort of like salmon swimming up stream but with snow and bleak whiteness. They then get down to the business of partnering up. Imagine a huge gathering of 7th graders who have been told to pick partners for dance lessons. Once they partner up, they mate and an egg arrives. Once the egg arrives, it must be transferred from the mother's feet to the father's feet. If they aren't quick and coordinated about it, the egg spends too much time on the ice and freezes. Once the egg is transferred, the mothers leave and march back to the edge of the ice -- again 70 miles or longer if the approaching winter has frozen more of the ocean -- to feed. (There isn't any food to be found in the breeding ground) After eating, getting fat, and storing food away for the future, they march back to the breeding grounds. The fathers, meanwhile have been sitting very carefully on the egg perched upon their feet and braving the scariest, nastiest, snow "hurricanes" you can imagine. The lucky ones have hatched their little ones -- and are waiting for the mothers to return with food. Once the mothers return, there is another transfer - requiring serious coordination - and the fathers take off for the feeding rituals. This goes on until summer when the parents leave for good and eventually the babies are instinctually drawn to the water.

I did note with wonder how the conservatives with odd agendas could interpret this movie as a life lesson for humans -- beyond the obvious one. A young, lesbian, high school biology teacher, mother summed it up rather nicely -- "when I was pregnant, I thought we had this terrible system - you grow this huge child inside you and push it out your vagina. Then I saw March of the Penguins and I decided our system was just fine." I can't figure out how the conservatives thought this should be a model for humans. Monogamy that lasts a few months at most? Mothers and fathers passing off the rearing duties and leaving? Eventually just abandoning the babies to fend for themselves? Okay, so I didn't see a single penguin discuss abortion -- but, I imagine that if there were a penguin mother or father who wasn't really crazy about the idea of parenthood, they could just be clumsy with the egg briefly. When you're talking eggs, instead of live births, abortion really more like those school projects that assign a bag of sugar or egg to a high school student as an object lesson.

The only lesson I think the conservatives should take from this movie is the fact that the father penguins were equally invested in the success of the survival of the egg/chick as the mother penguins. It seemed that the roles beyond actually creating the egg, were pretty equally divided.

It is a beautiful and well done movie. The baby penguins, as all babies are, were unbelievably cute and seemed to be worth the effort. Then again, I'm not a penguin. If a penguin had a choice between marching 70 miles for meals in the harsh snow and ice or hanging out in a temp controlled zoo with meals provided every day --- I bet they'd choose the zoo.