The Sky Is Falling: Chicken Little

Full Movie Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Little_(2005_movie)

My next self-assigned movie to watch was Chicken Little, and I admit, I wasn’t particularly excited about it. I was pretty sure I knew the story. A chicken screams out that the sky is falling, but it’s not; the town panics and chaos ensues; the chicken is mocked; etcetera, etcetera.  As I predicted, I wasn’t much interested in or entertained by the plot or the actual character Chicken Little; however, throughout the movie there  were several bits of social commentary that I thought were pretty funny (although they were probably overlooked by most of the target audience).

What I noticed first was Chicken Little and his astonishingly stereotypically nerdy group of friends – in animal form, of course. Chicken Little was the tiny, nerdy kid; Abby Mallard (the ugly duckling) was the ugly girl with braces and a big heart; Fish was the headgear-wearing nerd who no one really understands; and Runt (the pig) was the overweight kid. The contrast between the cool and uncool kids is clearly displayed in gym class, where the coach eagerly declares that the dodge ball game will be “popular vs. unpopular”. Foxy Loxy and the rest of the cool kids then go on to pummel and humiliate the nerds to the entertainment of the malicious gym teacher. This may not be the most realistic example of school life, but it’s still pretty funny because as younger, less mature kids, there probably was a certain degree of animosity between popular and unpopular. 

The next statement about society that I probably wouldn’t have noticed as a kid was the ridiculousness of the media’s scope. After Chicken Little run the school bell in the tiny town of Oakey Oaks and mistakenly declared that the sky was falling, the media caught on to the story and ran with it. Less than 30 seconds after the incident, there were 10 reporters in his face demanding answers to their questions. There were then reports of the incident on the radio and in the newspapers, and to round it all off there was a comical self-referential “Chicken Little – The Movie” billboard. Poor Chicken Little is criticized from all sides by the all-consuming media.

The funniest part of the movie in my opinion was Turkey Lurkey, the mayor, and his secret service agents, which appear to be the brains of the operation. In what I believe is a comical mockery of American politics, Turkey the Mayor is unable to make any decisions for himself – he instead blindly follows the cue cards that his staff hold up for him. While at the baseball game attempting to root for the Oakey Oaks team he clearly follows his directions to “follow the crowd”, “weep hopelessly” (when Chicken Little is called to bat with the game on the line), and “switch loyalty” (when Oakey Oaks pulls off the win). The inability for him, as a politician and leader, to make decisions regarding cheering for a simple baseball game, is what I found most comical.



Picture from this link



As a kid, I probably would have enjoyed the movie for its silliness and slapstick action sequences, but as a young adult I enjoyed it for a different reason. Overall, I wasn’t much interested in the character of Chicken Little or the actual plot of the movie; however, the comical stereotypes and amusing social commentary were enough to make the movie worth watching.