Anthropomorphism? - La marche de l'empereur (2005) Discussion

[–] MetFanMac 18 years ago

You tell me what adult human can swim like these penguins... or be so goshdarn adorably cute.

Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.

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[–] zeroevildarkcool 17 years ago

WERE ALL ANIMALS.

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[–] ericgant 18 years ago

I agree with you completely. Not only was the film anthropomorphic, but it did so at the expense of its stated purpose. Instead of going on about the emotional state of the penguins (which is of course unknowable) more information could have been provided. I dislike watching a documentary that sends me to the encyclopedia to answer basic questions about the subject. The film also implies that penguins are endangered while actually they are listed as a stable species. Morgan Freeman was a pleasure to listen to, but it is a shame that his narration did not contain a few more facts.

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[–] sean_mcg 18 years ago

This movie was never made as a 'documentary'. It's a story. The original French dialogue (it's a French movie) was not narration, the penguins themselves did the talking. It's best thought of as a real-life-filmed version of Happy Feet, (i.e, a nice story) and presents a year in the life of an Emperor colony (OK, make that about 9 months).

When viewing trials were made to English-speaking audiences, talking penguins didn't go down too well; viewers wanted a 'real documentary', so narration was used instead.

Those who want to be bombarded with facts can easily find them elsewhere. I wouldn't have wanted to watch this marvellous story 20 times if the narration was a regurgitation of scientific facts.

It isn't anthropomorphism to assign the emotions of love and grief to certain animals unless one makes the assumption that they are emotionless 'sociopaths'. Numerous members of the animal kingdom clearly have emotions and emotional attachment to other members of their species. Their inability to directly communicate their emotions to human observers does not imply that they don't have such emotions. For the record, I thought that the emotions of love and grief were crystal clear in some penguins in this movie without the need for suggestion from the narration.

And there is currently a petition to have Emperors listed as endangered. They are not one of the prolific species, breed on sea-ice and are very vulnerable to early sea-ice melt. Their future is anything but certain.

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[–] rabeaudet 18 years ago

the oxford english dictionary defines anthropomorphism thusly:

anthropomorphic, a.

1. Of the nature of anthropomorphism. a. Treating the Deity as anthropomorphous, or as having a human form and character.

b. Attributing a human personality to anything impersonal or irrational.

2. Having or representing a human form: = ANTHROPOMORPHOUS a.

so, clearly, in the b. sense of definition 1, this film clearly presents penguins in an anthropomorphic way.

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[–] Amry0217 18 years ago

One personality trait they didn't share = Humans have more sense then to depend on a spouse to return to take over babysitting duties specially in a world of car crashes, random shootings, epidemics, drug ODs, or robberies gone wrong. And if the spouse didn't return, they'd leave their child with someone else to take care of it while they traveled 70 miles to eat. But see, they wouldn't get in that spot in the first place, because you'd never see a human deliberately go 2-3 months without feeding, then travel 70 miles when they did feed. This one is not a human personality trait.

==============================
Next to you, next to me

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[–] thereelghostbuster 17 years ago

Regarding your first statement, you're correct except for the fact that National Geographic marketed it as a documentary in the U.S., and quite cleverly at that--it did so through Warner Independent; which, to the typical moviegoer, insinuates less commercial and more down-to-earth, barebones filmmaking.

There are certainly elements of the film that are artificial in order for the viewer to take from it some sort of anthropomorphism. For instance, the portion shot in high speed (resulting in slow motion frame-rate) depicting a couple mating. Now, whether or not that it was visually anthropomorphic is not part of the equation here; it is anthropomorphic on a technical and manipulative level, regardless of whether the animals actually feel that particular emotion of eroticism.

KC

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[–] brpunker0421 17 years ago

You have to market something to Americans...give it some slant, basically. Our national attention deficit disorder would not allow us to sit through a monologue-less movie, leaving only the sounds of the Penguins to get us through. That doesn't translate over here... we like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor... you know, stupid, mindless crap that takes little imagination to create.
And while the French may suck, their original concept of the film is a good one.

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[–] SpookyDuke 17 years ago

Please, don't offend art with something so shallow and corrupt as Happy feet.

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[–] brpunker0421 17 years ago

You psuedo-intelligent conservatives need to get over yourselves. It's a friggin movie. You are all so emotionally-detached... but then again, you are also all the same people who didn't mind that Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face hunting, probably thought it was funny... NO? Well, I did...

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[–] afromme 18 years ago

I just have to say I agree utterly and completely.
The film was just aired on German TV and while beautiful to behold I just found it impossible to listen to.
Firstly, I found the idea of putting dialogue into the penguins beaks (or heads, actually) QUITE bad to begin with; secondly, it seemed more or less devoid of facts (much in the same way that the average human wouldn't really be able to tell us much along the way of the human species in general) and thirdly, the dialogue was kept at a level that reminded me of daytime television soap operas, with some added pathos.
All of that made the film quite unwatchable for me, despite the amazing imagery.

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[–] daylenriggs 18 years ago

I think that's the whole point of the movie...to show that we're not all that different from them.

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[–] solongthanks 18 years ago

It's not anthropomorphism when they are portraying the animals realistically, which I think they did.

Tribal-type behavior as shown in the movie is not all limited to humans. It's a behavior we share with other social animals. They do form strong group relationships and have complex social behaviors. And love is a word we use to refer to behaviors involved in nurturing, parental care, social bonding, etc. Those behaviors are strong in other animals as well.

So showing that these animals lived in groups and had intense bonding and social behaviors wasn't anthropomorphizing them, but accurately showing penguins.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Philip K. Dick

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] lqac-waz 18 years ago

For God's sake! (just an expression - i'm atheist) It is not an either-or between anthropomophism and Pavlovism/skinnerism-with-humans-excepted.

1. Penguins are not human. They do *not* have human feelings.

but:

2. Penguins have feelings. Penguin feelings if you like.

i have no experience with penguins, but the stray dogs i care for - i'll shoot* you if you say they don't have feelings
(*shoot with a camerea, dear! your feeling are hurt? do you have feelings? prove it!)

If you ask me how I know, I'll ask you (as youve guessed by now) to first answer how you know that any human being other than yourself has feelings.

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[–] solongthanks 18 years ago

I wasn't suggesting anything about conditioning- in fact I can't imagine what conditioning has to do with this topic, so I'm a little confused by your response.

However, I agree that penguins have penguin feelings, thus illustrating those feelings is not a form of athropomorphism, regardless of whether those feelings are similar to human feelings or not.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Philip K. Dick

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[–] lqac-waz 18 years ago

We agree on what is being discussed, and I am sure I'd clicked "reply" to some post which said the film *was* anthropomorphic. So I wasn't contradicting *you*, see? (In fact if you set preferences to view topic as thread it will be clear that it is so.)

This "different preferences" - and even with view-as-thread - the display on IMDB forums is rather confusing. How come google usenet archives' thread-view is never confusing?

So let's agree to blame (for the mixup) the folks who designed how imdb forum messages are displayed ;)

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[–] solongthanks 18 years ago

You clicked reply to my post, which is why I got the email notification of your response to my post- it doesn't matter how your preferences are set- if you click reply to my post, it notifies me...(I do have it set on thread, btw, and that also shows that this was a reply to my post )

Having said that- I"m still curious, what does conditioning have to do with whether this was anthropomorphism?

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Philip K. Dick

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[–] lqac-waz 18 years ago

>You clicked reply to my post.

Oops, sorry. (I was multitasking and misclicked on wrong "reply" button - only human and all that. (only dualtasking at present - keeping my fingers crossed that there are no bloopers on my part this time :/ )

>Having said that- I"m still curious, what does conditioning have to do with >whether this was anthropomorphism?

Okay, my point was this - people who blame this film for anthropomorphism often believe; and more specifically, the person whose post's "reply" button I had *intended* to click on *did* assert or clearly imply :

A. that (non-human) animals work purely by instinct.

B. that humans do *not* work purely by instinct.

Assertion A, in my view, when elaborated to explain more complex behavior, is related to Pavlov's explanation of non-human animal behaviour in terms of "conditioning", and B. F. Skinner's explanation of *all* animal behaviour including human behaviour in terms of "operant conditioning". These are standard technical terms of behaviourist psychology [which psychology I find fascistic, but I digress] and and good web site, usenet thread, or textbook dealing with such matters will explain them much more lucidly than I am inclined to, or could supposing I were.

My point, in response to the person who implied assertions A and B (and other like-minded people), was that asserting A and B together is rather ad hoc: to make such a drastic exception for the animal Homo Sapiens defies 21st century common sense.

[Unless there people are coming from where I think they are coming from. (hint: Organised Religion, especially the three major confessional/abrahamic religions. Hint: Creationism. Adam and Eve. Special Place for Humankind in the God-Created Order Of Things.)]

[It would be fair retort to ask where *I* am coming from. I'll pre-empt the questioning by answering it. I am a 45-year old Englishwoman, atheist/agnostic mystic, technically of roman catholic parentage. But parents were (rigid) atheists. To come anywhere near properly describing what I mean by atheist/agnostic mystic would take 50 pages or so, so I wouldn't even try. Somewhat simplistically, just think of the defence attorney as she was at the *end* of the film "the exorcism of emily rose" which was based on an actual trial which I am given to understand [not from the film] happened in mid-1950's Germany [F.R.G.]. Less simplistically, think of late Ronald D. Laing's 1963 book "The Politics Of Experience".]

Thank you all (who bothered to read this) for reading this.

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[–] lqac-waz 18 years ago

PS to solongthanks: so long, and thanks for the fish ;)

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[–] mff8785 18 years ago

I agree. The "love"/"romanticized" narrative spun together to dress up the existence of these penguins is a crime. Very few creatures nurture a reckless sense of being as we, humans, do. I enjoy listening to Morgan Freeman's voice, but, damn, couldn't it have left out the "Romeo and Juliet" subtext?

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[–] josh_exell 18 years ago

How far does anyone think anthropormorphism is used in this film to create narrative?

i agree it does take something out of the film by comparing humans to animals like this, but maybe that's what makes it such a great film, that we can relate to in our own terms and shows family hardships etc. but also as a moral point of view and how we should all stick together as humans when life gets tough!

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[–] brian_griffin471 18 years ago

I believe that penguins have feelings.

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[–] 18 years ago

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