Sublimity in print.
Make sure to ready buckets of krill, fish, and squid because we are celebrating World Penguin Day!
This annual celebration was pioneered at McMurdo Station, an American research station, when researchers discovered that Adélie penguins of the Antarctic migrate up north every year on the 25th of April, looking for better access to food during the winter when the sea ice expands. Originally a day marking the migration proper of the Adélie penguins, it later changed into a yearly party where other penguins species could join in the fun. It became an opportunity to raise awareness of these flightless, aquatic birds.
Like many species adored by many, penguins face many threats to their survival. 10 out of 17 of its species are considered to be at high risk of extinction, and 3 of them could possibly become endangered in the near future. Several factors contributed to their decline; Overfishing and pollution rendered their food sources insufficient and unhealthy, and for a species that relies on cold temperatures, climate change is a major threat and a death sentence to their future.
These dangers to our waddling bird-buddies make World Penguin Day much more significant. They may be small, they may walk funny, and maybe to most people around the world it is hard to relate to birds that live in remote areas of the world, but there is no denying how iconic they are in popular culture. In our own way, remembering their iconic depictions in popular media is one of the many things we could do in raising awareness.
The iconic massively multiplayer online game Club Penguin is something not many young people will recognize nowadays, a stark contrast to how much of a cultural juggernaut it was years ago. It was an online social game made for children from the ages of 6 to 14, although people from any age can join. What made Club Penguin special was being able to live in a virtual world where you can interact and make some friends as Penguins! You can dress your own aquatic bird in many costumes, furnish your own igloo to suit your own style, and you can even own your own virtual pets called “puffles!”
All these features alongside a gallery of minigames you can partake with your penguin gang struck a chord with a lot of people, over 200 million registered users in fact back in July, 2013. It was a fond childhood memory to many, and its players who grew up will always remember their penguin avatar doing the iconic Club Penguin Dance and partaking in snowball fights with friends and strangers.
Image taken from: https://clubpenguin.fandom.com/wiki/Lighthouse_postcard
Image taken from: https://suwalls.com/cartoons/happy-feet-4
Happy Feet (2006) is an award winning musical animated feature about emperor penguins singing their own unique “heart songs” to attract a mate. But our intrepid hero named Mumble, played by Lord of the Rings superstar Elijah Wood, learned to tap dance his way of finding true romance instead. The premise for the movie is strange for that alone, made even stranger with the fact that its director, George Miller, went from making high-octane action in the Mad Max Film Series to directing a movie about melodious penguins. Happy Feet tells a story of Mumble learning to accept saving his colony from the dangers of Antarctic overfishing through the power of singing and dancing.
It is hard to do justice to the sheer strangeness of its plot, and it may have received mixed reviews on release, but there was no denying the cultural impact this movie had when it came out. It was a commercial hit, and made emperor penguins very popular to many children, who grew up with Happy Feet toys, shirts, and all other merchandise.
Image taken from: https://www.andrew-vickers.com/
Madagascar (2005), much like Happy Feet, was a strange movie made during a time when Dreamworks was still building its most popular franchises from the ground up. The nonsensical plot was about a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo, New York City, escaping into the titular island of Madagascar. It was a standard animated feature of the early 2000s, otherwise forgotten if not for the inclusion of the endlessly iconic penguins named Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private. Supposedly side characters in an otherwise forgettable movie, through sheer charisma and charm they stole the show. In a movie about a lion struggling with his instincts as a predator over protecting his friends, a zebra at peace with embracing the comfort of living in the wilderness, a shy giraffe and a happy-go-lucky hippopotamus who are only going along for the ride, it was a bunch of savvy Adélie penguins who remained Madagascar’s iconic legacy. Their enduring popularity thrived in the countless internet memes, and eventually into their very own film in 2014 titled ‘Penguins of Madagascar’ to commercial success despite mixed reviews.
Madagascar’s penguins may be iconic, but they do not have 38 years of legacy as Pingu does. The titular penguin starred in his own TV show of the same name back in 1986, originating in Switzerland. The show’s popularity grew into an audience of children from other countries as well. Its widespread appeal is because of its charming fictional “penguin language” referred to as Penguinese, as well as its quirky depiction to a world of penguins living day-to-day lives through its iconic use of stop-motion claymation. The show was a goldmine of memes, which contributed to its enduring popularity, and also because of the grown adults who are still traumatized by the walrus episode to this day.
World Penguin Day is an opportunity, as the struggle to secure a future for these cute little creatures is far from over. In our own way, raising awareness on their importance not just to the ecosystem, but as one of our planet’s gentle species is a cause worth striving for as long as it takes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lamb-mule is a student in the program Literary and Cultural Studies with Creative Writing. He is fond of reading books, mostly fictitious works.