In their little tuxedoes, they are almost like us...

What is it with penguins these days? It seems as though their years of walking around the South Pole in their little tuxedoes have all been in anticipation of taking center stage as the cultural touchstones of the moment.

First, the gays totally owned them. In February of 2024 much was made about the gay penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo. Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins, entered the cultural imagination as a rather boring queer couple. Devoted to each other, they were nesters, so desperate to have a family that they incubated a rock for a while until zookeepers gave them a real egg, which they hatched and raised. Together, they resembled that graying couple who keeps eyeing you from the cocktail bar at the opera. Dashing in their gladrags, but utterly unremarkable, as faggotry (and lesbianism) is rife within the animal world. At a particular zoo in Germany, the penguin colony achieved a level of social justice that we homo sapien gays can only dream about.

Now the conservatives have taken penguins back. For some reason, the film March of the Penguins is a paragon of conservative ideals:

"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing."

Speaking of audiences who feel that movies ignore or belittle such themes, he added: "This is the first movie they've enjoyed since 'The Passion of the Christ.' This is 'The 'Passion of the Penguins.' "

From what I've seen of the trailer, the film is like Passion of the Christ in another way--both are probably really funny (and best viewed) when you're stoned.

But conservatives, in raising high the penguin familial unit as an example, are cherry-picking the good news while ignoring the fact that global warming is a threat to traditional penguin families.

To add insult to injury, Silo has turned straight. Their years of antiquing are over, their dreams of opening a B&B faded away.

These days, Silo has a girlfriend. And Roy? Well, lately he has been observed hanging around a few sexually immature penguins, but he has no real prospects. It seems Roy is a troubled penguin.

Silo found a young female. Her name is Scrappy," Rob Gramzay, the zoo's senior penguin keeper, told me in a phone interview on Tuesday. "They had an egg. It didn't work out and they might try again."

And Roy?

"Roy didn't really find anybody. He hung out with a few birds, half of them were female, half were male," Gramzay said. "He's not in a nesting situation. It's more for camaraderie."

So Silo has become an ex-gay who can't get it up to conceive and Roy has become that guy who hangs out at The Saloon on chicken night. So sad.

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Posted by jason at September 15, 2024 08:06 PM