start your penguins

This is what a penguin looks like:


This is the poster for the new movie “Surf’s Up,” which features a couple penguins.


Notice any difference?

What is going on with the penguin in the middle, who is *clearly* female, and who has apparently had all her extra blubber liposuctioned? I have read stories before where paranoid feminists read into the “slimming down” of products, and decry it as an example of the harsh expectations of modern ideals, but never before have I wanted to stand up and point at something and go “My God! Look what they’re teaching our children!” This is a blatantly size-ist poster.

Nevermind the fact that we’re humanizing penguins, or that the animators feel the need to make them conform to our beauty standards—PENGUINS DON’T HAVE BREASTS. They lay EGGS and feed their young regurgitated fish (and you thought penguins were so cute), and their bodies are designed to lay eggs and regurgitate fish, not give birth live young and breastfeed. This is what humans do, and why women have curves in the appropriate place. Penguins also do not have a trim waist—they have fat so that they can survive swimming in cold water. And I feel really bad that the animators of this film took away this penguin’s “bingo wings” –without adequate flippers, she’s never going to be able to outswim an orca.

Now, I haven’t seen “Surf’s Up” so I can’t be certain that this film isn’t a celebration of one overweight penguin’s triumph over her lifelong struggle with obesity, (and while we’re on the subject, why does the boy penguin get to be chubby and cute?) but I’m pretty sure that ain’t the plotline Sony had in mind. But, even though it’s judging a book by its cover, this is definitely one I’ll be giving a miss.