the secret march of penguins

Last night after our "official" anniversary dinner (remember, we still have our Washington DC trip next month), Craig & I watched March of the Penguins. I like Penguins*. You all know this. However, this movie has been sitting on top of the DVD player, still in its netflix envelope, for a few weeks. So since our Hanging Around Outside Plans were dampened by the random NYC rain, we decided to watch it.

As we watched the scenes of penguins finding mates and cuddling as they progressed through their family life, I started to think about Mutual of Omaha's Wild America. You might remember this show as the original nature documentary show. And the fact that a lot of it was faked (i.e. throwing a wounded deer into pack of wolves to film the result). I got to thinking.

The cuddling scenes showed two adult penguins rubbing their beaks over each others' faces. Soft music played on the soundtrack. The action was very slow. What would happen if we changed the music and sped up the film? It would look like they were trying to kill each other. (Btw, they did show a couple of penguin "fight" scenes, and they are hilarious.) So how do I know that they didn't just slow down the film and put soft music on to make the viewer think that this is a romantic, happy time when in fact penguins are brutal killing machines, out for blood?

Nobody would ever know. How many people have gone to Antarctica and observed penguins in the wild? Very few. Sure, we see them in zoos and at aquariums, but this is by no means their natural habitat so we can't expect them to act naturally. Frankly, the documentarians are lucky to have escaped with their lives. The penguins haven't fooled me. I still think they're awesome. In fact, I think they are MORE awesome now.


*We'll ignore the fact that this documentary is exclusively about Emperor penguins and not Adelie penguins, the best penguins ever (as evidenced by the tattoo on my right shoulder).