Hollywood's going to call any minute...

Great, just when we finally get a decent documentary that doesn’t proclaim some religious or political agenda, the right gets the idea to make “March of the Penguins” into this year’s “Cash-in of the Priced”.

Come on people, they are birds, not Baptists. The interesting thing about the whole argument is that the RR* is treating the content of the movie in exactly the same way that they treat the content of the bible – viewing it as an enclosed space with no before, no after, and where nothing occurs outside of it.

Let’s look at the facts. Emperor Penguins do go through an amazing process to raise their young. All the “walking, freezing, egg-laying, more walking, starving, binging, more walking, barfing, and repeat”? Amazing, obviously. But they don’t do it for Jesus, they do it because they need tax deductions.

You may think that I’m now going to go into the debate about whether
gay penguins are also Christian or are they lustful pagan hedonists who have “made the choice” to veer away from the straight and narrow. That would be taking the easy way out. Instead, I’ve been thinking about what other animals might make for the next great Christian documentary movie. After all, since penguins boink a different mate every year, there’s not much chance for a sequel that would maintain the monogamous theme they would be shooting for (Picture it, the baby penguin comes home to find he’s got a new daddy! It would be titled “March of the Penguins II – Who’s that Man with Mommy?”). Here’s the list I’ve compiled so far:

Plight of the Honeybee – A young lady honeybee is chased from her home at a young age by her murderous mother. She flies to a far-off place where she engages in a huge orgy with dozens of virile young males. She is so potent that her lovemaking kills them shortly afterwards. This causes her to feel guilty about her hedonist ways so she swears off sex forever. But, fortunately for her, she has been impregnated by all her suitors! Finally, a way to make up for killing them – by carrying all 10 billion of their offspring to term! She finds a nice shady home and proceeds to squeeze out kid after kid, with each one feeling a wave of redemption. Her kids, grateful that mom wasn’t on birth control, decide to build a giant church out of their own poo where they can all live.

Moral of the story: Even the sluttiest girl can be forgiven provided she doesn’t use birth control and squeezes out billions of kids.

Salmon in the City – Sammy Salmon is living the good life in the ocean with his buddies from home. They gorge themselves on smaller, weaker fish. Bullying them by chasing them down before swallowing them whole. They drink to excess (some would say they drink like a…umm…like a…oh, what’s a good simile here, I dunno…oh hang it all…suffice to say they drink a lot), hang out with rough crowds at school, and generally behave like wild beats for six years. But then, one day he and all his buddies get a strange empty feeling inside them – they have no recollection of their parents and hardly any memory of home and family! So, they make a pact to all return home and millions of them start on a kooky road trip where they have adventures galore, avoiding bears and driving against traffic. After a week or so they return to their hometowns exhausted, shouting “Mom? Dad? I’m home!” But there is no response. Their parents have left them behind because, as they find out from a friendly local crayfish, their parents died shortly after Sammy and his friends were born. Overwhelmed with grief, Sammy heads for a local sandbar where he proceeds to drink like a…like…oh alright he drinks like an Irishman in a vain attempt to drown his sorrows. Feeling the effects of drink, he hooks up with a complete stranger and has sex with her without getting married first! Then he dies. And he’s eaten by otters; evil otters who use his skull as a bizarre helmet for their pagan belly-sliding rituals.

Moral of the story: Honor thy mother and father, sex before marriage will kill you, and otters are not to be trusted.

Roddy the Pious Cicada – Roddy was a good boy, ever since he was a larva. He stayed close to home, sucking on a tree root because that’s what good cidacas did. He never talked to girls because he didn’t even know where they were, none of them ever came over to suck on his tree root. His parents were so proud when he was accepted into Pupaeversity nearby, because it meant he could come home for more tree root sucking with the family. After two years of underpupae study he graduated and immediately applied to engineering school, which he completed in another two years. He was now 14 years old and his family was ready for him to settle down with them at home and suck more tree roots, maybe working as an engineering for Cicada Electric.

But Roddy had heard rumors about a place called “the real world” which was full of excitement, where there were many others like him who were just starting out their lives. He felt an urge, and despite his parents’ wishes one night he ran away from home and started digging up, up towards the light! Bursting through into the brilliant rays of sunshine! Strange, overwhelming feelings overtook him then. He felt his clothes starting to get tight…so…tight! He had to take them off! To be naked, to be free! He stripped of his clothes to find that he had wings underneath them. All this time he could fly and he didn’t know it! He leaped into the air flying with abandon! What a joy! All the new things in this new culture to see and do and experience! Sure, there weren’t any tree roots to suck around here, but who needed tree roots anymore!? Why would his parents have not wanted him to come here?

That’s when it happened. He felt a strange burning sensation in his loins! He needed something…but what? He didn’t know! His eyes turned red with lust as he began hunting around trying to find the object of his desire. He flew at anything that moved: flowers, trees, squirrels, pedestrian commuters – anything in his attempt to find fulfillment. Without tree roots to suck, he felt the emptiness inside him growing. That’s when he heard a siren song eminating from a nearby tree. Flying nearby he saw what he knew would make him happy – a six-legged, red eyed winged jezabel, luring him closer. He moved towards her, clinging to her in a passionate embrace, hoping to find the same sort of happiness he had once gotten from sucking tree roots. But alas, when he was done she left him. Roddy was crushed. He never should have left his tree root. That’s when he dies of syphilis, contracted from the temptress. His lifeless body falls towards the ground, but it’s eaten by a bat before it reaches the soft earth next to the tree roots that he loved so much.

Moral of the story: Sucking tree roots is a metaphor for chuch – get it? If you stop going to church you’ll get syphilis and then you’ll be eaten by evil bats because they are in league with the otters. Don’t ask why Roddy’s cicada parents were still alive if all cicadas die after the 14-year mating cycle – Roddy was adopted and raised by earthworms. Earthworms with masters degrees in entymlogy, which is why they told him not to go because they knew what would happen.

Comments

ThatIsMeWhat said…
Oh jeeze I had no idea penguins are now political fodder. If penguins are the perfect role models, why aren't conservatives doing more to protect their perfect little habitats? Hypocrisy. They want to legislate family values but have no clue how to promote them.
Unknown said…
I would pay $8.50 to see any of those documentaries, $9.50 if Pat Robertson puts up the capital to get them made.