Puzzle of the penguin trek parable

By Jack Malvern, Arts Reporter

IT WOULD seem extraordinary that a film about penguins trekking 70 miles through sub-zero temperatures and 120mph winds could be seized upon by the American religious right as a parable about monogamy and creationism. But that was exactly what happened when March of the Penguins became the surprise hit at the American box office this year.
Yesterday, days before the film’s British premiere at The Times bfi London Film Festival next week, the director hit back at the commentators he believes have wilfully misread his film. “If you want an example of monogamy, penguins are not a good choice,” Luc Jacquet told The Times. “The divorce rate in emperor penguins is 80 to 90 per cent each year,” he said. “After they see the chick is OK, most of them divorce. They change every year.”

In fact the rate is substantially worse than the American divorce rate, which is about 50 per cent.

Commentators in the United States, where the documentary film has taken more than $75 million (£42 million), claimed that the penguins are symbols for everything from monogamy to the right to life. Michael Medved, a conservative film critic and radio host, concluded that the story of the emperor penguins’ journey “most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing”.

Another commentator, Andrew Coffin, wrote in the Christian publication World magazine that the complexity of the penguins’ lives was evidence of “intelligent design”, a theory developed for those who believe that life is too complex to have come about through random selection.

“It’s sad that acknowledgment of a creator is absent in the examination of such strange and wonderful animals,” he wrote. “But it is a gap easily filled by family discussion after the film.”

Mr Jacquet, who has never made a film for the cinema before, is concerned that his documentary has been hijacked. “It does annoy me to a certain degree,” he said. “For me there is no doubt about evolution. I am a scientist. The intelligent design theory is a step back to the thinking of 300 years ago. My film is not supposed to be interpreted in this way. Some scientists I know find the film interesting because it can be a good argument against intelligent design. People should not jump on these bandwagons.”