"Penguins" to the rescue

by Mark R. Schneider

Today I took my two kids, ages 6 and 7, to see "March of the Penguins". Narrated by Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, "Penguins" is a documentary that follows these fascinating creatures as they struggle to preserve their progeny against the unforgiving harshness of Antarctica. The film has the characteristic stamp of clean professionalism as most other National Geographic produced films. It also is the only film I felt I could safely take my kids to amidst a wasteland of gratuitous violence, sex, inane humor, and increasingly raw depictions of human sin.

When Sin City came out a number of months ago I marveled at Hollywood's shameless ingenuity at discovering new and more creative ways at celebrating in-your-face evil; and this I got merely from watching the "approved for all audiences" teaser. But the moneyed in Hollywood have demonstrated an insatiable desire for serving up filth, an appetite almost matched by a public willingness to slop it up.

Here's but a sampling of actual film listings and descriptions from the Los Angeles Times for the week of August 7th.

The Aristocrats: "Obscene, disgusting, vulgar and vile...gloriously filthy...".
Asylum: "A skillful chronicle of mad love...a dizzying erotic romance...".
Bad News Bears: "fast, loose and subversive..".
Cronicas: "...a hot shot reporter with a TV tabloid news program in Miami heads for an Ecuadorian village that has become the latest target for a serial rapist-killer of children..".
The Devil's Rejects: "Rob Zombie (is that this guy's real name?) transitions from house of horrors homage to serial killer road movie in this crass, vacuous exercise in grind-house stylistics."
Hustle & Flow: "alternatively moving and hilarious account of a Memphis pimp..".
Pretty Persuasion: "a jaw dropping marvel of inappropriateness...fearless, to die for, portrayal of a sexually manipulative schoolgirl...".
Songs: "...is the most sexually explicit theatrical feature a mainstream director has ever made."
Wedding Crashers: Vaughn and Wilson are univited guests at stranger's nupitals, sampling the buffets and bridesmaids...".
2046: "haunting, lyrical, and thickly erotic...".


Maybe its just me, but the movie industry seems awash in dressed up trailor trash. The irony is that most of these films never live up to their financial expectations. Compare. According to the movie chronicler IMDb , the G rated Finding Nemo grossed 339M and was the thirteenth top grossing film of all time. The Lion King was not far behind at number fifteen, grossing 328M. By contrast, Sin City hasn't even made it to the top 335 (where they stop counting), summarily whipped by such films as The Rugrats Movie, Bambi, and The Little Mermaid.

So why does Hollywood keep peddling this stuff? Well certainly one reason is a pervasive adolescence among studio executives, who consider it their mission to push society's mores to ever lower levels. Doing so confers upon them a certain cache' among their equally stunted peers. In other words, they make these movies because they think it's "cool". And having a "cult" following appeals to the mind enamoured with peer acceptance for its own sake. But that's only one reason. The other is because they actually like this debauchery themselves. In fact they exault in their disdain for moral goodness. Besides, the producers of these films know that, no matter how bad these movies are, they will invariably generate enough business to keep the train moving.

Don't misread what I'm saying. The "R" attachment to a film does not in itself provide any insight into its moral depth or lack thereof. Stephen Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan is brutally violent and also one the finest films ever made. The difference, as if it needed articulation, between it and films like Sin City is that Saving Private Ryan unambiguously exposes the contrast between good and evil, elevating the former and denouncing the latter. Graphic depictions are used as necessary to underscore the realism inherent in that deeper message. In Sin City, however, stylistic sex and violence is what defines the film. That is the message. The very object is to titillate, shock and arouse. You see the same difference between another Spielberg film, Schindler's List, and Rob Zombie's pathetic joke of a film, The Devil's Rejects.

Getting back to March of the Penguins, we arrived only minutes before it started because, frankly, I didn't expect many people to be there. Yet walking in I was stunned by what I saw. The theatre was nearly filled to capacity, and not with parents with kids looking for a safe escape from the heat, but with people of all strata and ages, once again proving that a well made G rated film, even about Penguins, can still outshine the best that Rob Zombie has to offer.