Penguins
Penguins
12/11/05
Several months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing the recently-released highly-acclaimed movie about some penguins in Antarctica. It was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking film.
I think that the movie fascinated me more with what it did not address than with what it did. Also, the spin that the directors used in apparently trying to make the movie more endearing to audiences was interesting. I shall address the latter first.
Humans tend to regard other animals with an anthropocentric slant. Saying that a dog who is licking you is “kissing” you is one example. Animal analysts agree that actually the dog likes the salty flavor of your skin. The dog is not showing you love but is really getting something it wants---another treat. The dog must be comfortable with you so as to lick you rather than bite you, but being comfortable does not translate into love. It is a kind of canine hidden agenda to want your salt. The human interpretation is hidden from the dog, too, since the dog likely does not know the human thinks there is kissing going on, even if it senses that the human does not mind being licked. Likewise in the penguin film, from the beginning the narrator appears to be trying to make a love story out of a documentary about a non-human animal. I think doing so is thoroughly anthropomorphic.
But what is love? Many of us seem to know intuitively what love is and have experienced it. But trying to put your finger on it, particularly in attempting to compare what humans do as opposed to other animals, is a challenge. According to a recent version of a popular dictionary, love can vary from one extreme to the other. The range spans from the kind of affection that we associate with “brotherly love” all the way to the passionate devotion, sexual hunger, and yearning for another human that can make two people want to become united forever. Are we trying to ascribe any part of this spectrum to penguins? It certainly seems that the makers of the movie are attempting to do so.
In the movie, mates stood facing one another with “eyelids” squinched and necks slowly and gently alternating between straight up and bent down, occasionally nuzzling one another. My interpretation of this certainly includes affection. Clearly, these two birds were not at odds with one another. Whether this represents love in the human sense is unclear to me. Not seen in the movie was the sex (which would have actually been interesting to get a glimpse of) because something had to happen in order to produce the big egg that ended up appearing later on. Then the female had to go 70 miles to gather food, while Dad served as the egg-warmer. Since food was 70 miles away and conditions were not entirely favorable, both Dad and Mom were apparently too busy to tend to one another, even too busy to get together for a quickie. There was one more instance later on, according to the movie, when there was time for a little more standing facing one another with necks bent. Was there sex then, too? If the offspring survived, after only about nine months the young bird witnessed the departure of its parents and likely would never see them again. Mom and Dad likewise departed ways and came back after three months seeking other partners. If we lapsed back into anthropomorphism, we might regard this as a kind of sanctioned infidelity, or maybe it is more like wife-swapping without ever swapping back. Superficially, not thinking about it too very much, it is endearing to regard at least the mating part as a penguin love story, but I submit that window dressing is about the extent of it. I think it is quite apparent that penguins do not very much exhibit patterns parallel to either human love or the social trappings that accompany the emotion. I think it would be fair to assert, based upon watching the penguins in the movie, that the New Scholastic Dictionary for Penguins’ definition of the word “love” would read differently from that of the dictionary of human English language that I consulted.
Now, onward to further observations. There are certain things the movie showed but did not address and others details that were conspicuously absent. These things perplex and fascinate me. I shall write something about several of them.
The movie did not tell whether Antarctica supports more than one flock of penguins. Undoubtedly it does. I have not researched this yet, but I would imagine that other “colonies” of penguins elsewhere would be different in ways that, for instance, robins are different from cardinals, except maybe not from the standpoint of color scheme.
There exists irony in the pattern of migration of this flock of penguins. In a sense, going back to the place of your birth every year is similar to the practice that many other types of fowl exhibit. However, in the case of these penguins in the movie, it is not the same as how the northern hemispheric birds “head south for the winter” to more favorable conditions. It is quite a bit the opposite. These penguins reside in the southern hemisphere, and yet they head south for the winter to some of the worst conditions imaginable on the surface of the earth. This is thoroughly counterintuitive. What a pattern to get locked into! Humans would not do that, would they? At least, humans would not ordinarily do so on an annual basis.
As with other birds, the penguins are both tough and delicate at the same time. They have to be strong, determined, and healthy in order to withstand the conditions they must endure. But they also are so tightly locked into their pattern of living that they are vulnerable to being brought down by a change in conditions. In the case of the movie star penguins, their environmental requirements are so extreme and specific that you would expect any substantial changes in climate to be devastating. This observation is especially poignant in light of the earth’s ongoing climate change that is presently happening. Of course, adverse environmental conditions would negatively affect any type of plant or animal. Even so, in the case of these penguins with their tight niche market, a distinct inflexibility is evident and is bound to be a liability when facing changes in the habitat. And it might end up being a bit tougher to save the penguins than, say, the manatees.
If you look at the migrating bunch of penguins in the movie, they more or less fit into a pattern of a single-file march to their final destination. This is only the big picture, however. Examination of individual birds shows that some appear to get frisky and deviate out of line from time to time; some will flop on their bellies and navigate that way for a while; some will get lost and freeze to death; some will loiter and then catch up. These birds individually have their own distinct personalities, just like housecats and dogs and all of us. It is interesting that these birds have such a compulsion to conform and yet are individuals expressing their personal tendencies within the confines of this conformity. My interpretation is that the big picture shows conformity in a statistical sort of way, while on the individual level there is a lot of latitude to take personal license---within limits, of course, beyond which the consequence is likely to be death.
The movie initially makes a strong case for protection of the offspring at all costs. A mother is shown who does not coddle her newborn enough and loses it when it freezes solid. She goes off to steal one from another mother. A battle prevents this. Both the assaulted mother and some nearby companions come to the rescue of the infant. On the other hand, beyond that things become paradoxical. The movie turns right around and contradicts its depiction of steadfast protectionism and does not address the inconsistency. Let a big, hungry bird fly down and pick off a baby penguin for dinner. Where is the battle in that case? No, penguins are not humans. Not one penguin---parent or otherwise---rushed to protect the group of babies under attack. This is a glaring discrepancy. Perhaps it is nature’s way of culling out the young penguin population of its more vulnerable members, so much so that there is a built-in selective blindness that the adults have, resulting in their not seeming to recognize treachery when it comes from outside the flock.
And for that matter, where did that big word-bombing bird fly in from, anyway? Apparently, penguins are not the only animals that can live above ground in Antarctica and tolerate such climate extremes. It seems to me that conditions are even worse for the big birds that can fly, if they are loners without others to huddle with, and if they create their own wind-chill by flying. I wonder what else these big birds eat besides vulnerable young penguins. Frozen penguin eggs, maybe? If so, that would surely chill their insides further. To me, it would be astounding for them to eat frozen eggs. Personally, I would go for something warm-blooded and alive to eat every time I got hungry, if I were the big flying bird.
We should not practice anthropomorphism when it comes to the penguins’ devious behavior, either. Once again, in the movie there was a penguin mother who tried to kidnap another mother’s baby. Maybe there is a set of Ten Commandments for Penguins that covers such an infraction, but I doubt it. Observation suggests that the rules are probably different in the case of penguins. For instance, horrified humans would seek to prosecute kidnappers, but penguins probably consider it an ordinary occurrence (if they think about it at all) and only try to defend against it. But it does appear that humans do not hold the patent on cheating and stealing. Either that, or there is patent infringement going on. Another fascinating thing is that kidnapping appears to be a relatively uncommon phenomenon among all those penguin mothers who lose their offspring. This is another strong indication that individual penguins have unique personalities with surprising variability.
And where are all the bird droppings? Admittedly, in the movie there seemed to be some little dark spots on the snow, but in all of those seemingly spontaneous sequences, not one of the birds got caught in the act of “doing it”. Could the editors have been that good at culling out the frames that suggested bodily functions? Or do the birds just store their waste up for the winter, too?
Come to think of it, if you were a penguin and if the usual daytime summer temperatures were 40 below zero Fahrenheit, and if you did not know any different, living would seem rather ordinary. It just goes to show you that maybe life on Mars is not so implausible after all.
The penguin movie was thoroughly inspiring for at least one of us. I hope a lot of other people enjoyed it as much as I did.
© 2005, srman07
12/11/05
Several months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing the recently-released highly-acclaimed movie about some penguins in Antarctica. It was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking film.
I think that the movie fascinated me more with what it did not address than with what it did. Also, the spin that the directors used in apparently trying to make the movie more endearing to audiences was interesting. I shall address the latter first.
Humans tend to regard other animals with an anthropocentric slant. Saying that a dog who is licking you is “kissing” you is one example. Animal analysts agree that actually the dog likes the salty flavor of your skin. The dog is not showing you love but is really getting something it wants---another treat. The dog must be comfortable with you so as to lick you rather than bite you, but being comfortable does not translate into love. It is a kind of canine hidden agenda to want your salt. The human interpretation is hidden from the dog, too, since the dog likely does not know the human thinks there is kissing going on, even if it senses that the human does not mind being licked. Likewise in the penguin film, from the beginning the narrator appears to be trying to make a love story out of a documentary about a non-human animal. I think doing so is thoroughly anthropomorphic.
But what is love? Many of us seem to know intuitively what love is and have experienced it. But trying to put your finger on it, particularly in attempting to compare what humans do as opposed to other animals, is a challenge. According to a recent version of a popular dictionary, love can vary from one extreme to the other. The range spans from the kind of affection that we associate with “brotherly love” all the way to the passionate devotion, sexual hunger, and yearning for another human that can make two people want to become united forever. Are we trying to ascribe any part of this spectrum to penguins? It certainly seems that the makers of the movie are attempting to do so.
In the movie, mates stood facing one another with “eyelids” squinched and necks slowly and gently alternating between straight up and bent down, occasionally nuzzling one another. My interpretation of this certainly includes affection. Clearly, these two birds were not at odds with one another. Whether this represents love in the human sense is unclear to me. Not seen in the movie was the sex (which would have actually been interesting to get a glimpse of) because something had to happen in order to produce the big egg that ended up appearing later on. Then the female had to go 70 miles to gather food, while Dad served as the egg-warmer. Since food was 70 miles away and conditions were not entirely favorable, both Dad and Mom were apparently too busy to tend to one another, even too busy to get together for a quickie. There was one more instance later on, according to the movie, when there was time for a little more standing facing one another with necks bent. Was there sex then, too? If the offspring survived, after only about nine months the young bird witnessed the departure of its parents and likely would never see them again. Mom and Dad likewise departed ways and came back after three months seeking other partners. If we lapsed back into anthropomorphism, we might regard this as a kind of sanctioned infidelity, or maybe it is more like wife-swapping without ever swapping back. Superficially, not thinking about it too very much, it is endearing to regard at least the mating part as a penguin love story, but I submit that window dressing is about the extent of it. I think it is quite apparent that penguins do not very much exhibit patterns parallel to either human love or the social trappings that accompany the emotion. I think it would be fair to assert, based upon watching the penguins in the movie, that the New Scholastic Dictionary for Penguins’ definition of the word “love” would read differently from that of the dictionary of human English language that I consulted.
Now, onward to further observations. There are certain things the movie showed but did not address and others details that were conspicuously absent. These things perplex and fascinate me. I shall write something about several of them.
The movie did not tell whether Antarctica supports more than one flock of penguins. Undoubtedly it does. I have not researched this yet, but I would imagine that other “colonies” of penguins elsewhere would be different in ways that, for instance, robins are different from cardinals, except maybe not from the standpoint of color scheme.
There exists irony in the pattern of migration of this flock of penguins. In a sense, going back to the place of your birth every year is similar to the practice that many other types of fowl exhibit. However, in the case of these penguins in the movie, it is not the same as how the northern hemispheric birds “head south for the winter” to more favorable conditions. It is quite a bit the opposite. These penguins reside in the southern hemisphere, and yet they head south for the winter to some of the worst conditions imaginable on the surface of the earth. This is thoroughly counterintuitive. What a pattern to get locked into! Humans would not do that, would they? At least, humans would not ordinarily do so on an annual basis.
As with other birds, the penguins are both tough and delicate at the same time. They have to be strong, determined, and healthy in order to withstand the conditions they must endure. But they also are so tightly locked into their pattern of living that they are vulnerable to being brought down by a change in conditions. In the case of the movie star penguins, their environmental requirements are so extreme and specific that you would expect any substantial changes in climate to be devastating. This observation is especially poignant in light of the earth’s ongoing climate change that is presently happening. Of course, adverse environmental conditions would negatively affect any type of plant or animal. Even so, in the case of these penguins with their tight niche market, a distinct inflexibility is evident and is bound to be a liability when facing changes in the habitat. And it might end up being a bit tougher to save the penguins than, say, the manatees.
If you look at the migrating bunch of penguins in the movie, they more or less fit into a pattern of a single-file march to their final destination. This is only the big picture, however. Examination of individual birds shows that some appear to get frisky and deviate out of line from time to time; some will flop on their bellies and navigate that way for a while; some will get lost and freeze to death; some will loiter and then catch up. These birds individually have their own distinct personalities, just like housecats and dogs and all of us. It is interesting that these birds have such a compulsion to conform and yet are individuals expressing their personal tendencies within the confines of this conformity. My interpretation is that the big picture shows conformity in a statistical sort of way, while on the individual level there is a lot of latitude to take personal license---within limits, of course, beyond which the consequence is likely to be death.
The movie initially makes a strong case for protection of the offspring at all costs. A mother is shown who does not coddle her newborn enough and loses it when it freezes solid. She goes off to steal one from another mother. A battle prevents this. Both the assaulted mother and some nearby companions come to the rescue of the infant. On the other hand, beyond that things become paradoxical. The movie turns right around and contradicts its depiction of steadfast protectionism and does not address the inconsistency. Let a big, hungry bird fly down and pick off a baby penguin for dinner. Where is the battle in that case? No, penguins are not humans. Not one penguin---parent or otherwise---rushed to protect the group of babies under attack. This is a glaring discrepancy. Perhaps it is nature’s way of culling out the young penguin population of its more vulnerable members, so much so that there is a built-in selective blindness that the adults have, resulting in their not seeming to recognize treachery when it comes from outside the flock.
And for that matter, where did that big word-bombing bird fly in from, anyway? Apparently, penguins are not the only animals that can live above ground in Antarctica and tolerate such climate extremes. It seems to me that conditions are even worse for the big birds that can fly, if they are loners without others to huddle with, and if they create their own wind-chill by flying. I wonder what else these big birds eat besides vulnerable young penguins. Frozen penguin eggs, maybe? If so, that would surely chill their insides further. To me, it would be astounding for them to eat frozen eggs. Personally, I would go for something warm-blooded and alive to eat every time I got hungry, if I were the big flying bird.
We should not practice anthropomorphism when it comes to the penguins’ devious behavior, either. Once again, in the movie there was a penguin mother who tried to kidnap another mother’s baby. Maybe there is a set of Ten Commandments for Penguins that covers such an infraction, but I doubt it. Observation suggests that the rules are probably different in the case of penguins. For instance, horrified humans would seek to prosecute kidnappers, but penguins probably consider it an ordinary occurrence (if they think about it at all) and only try to defend against it. But it does appear that humans do not hold the patent on cheating and stealing. Either that, or there is patent infringement going on. Another fascinating thing is that kidnapping appears to be a relatively uncommon phenomenon among all those penguin mothers who lose their offspring. This is another strong indication that individual penguins have unique personalities with surprising variability.
And where are all the bird droppings? Admittedly, in the movie there seemed to be some little dark spots on the snow, but in all of those seemingly spontaneous sequences, not one of the birds got caught in the act of “doing it”. Could the editors have been that good at culling out the frames that suggested bodily functions? Or do the birds just store their waste up for the winter, too?
Come to think of it, if you were a penguin and if the usual daytime summer temperatures were 40 below zero Fahrenheit, and if you did not know any different, living would seem rather ordinary. It just goes to show you that maybe life on Mars is not so implausible after all.
The penguin movie was thoroughly inspiring for at least one of us. I hope a lot of other people enjoyed it as much as I did.
© 2005, srman07
posted by srman07 at 8:42 PM
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