Al Gore's Penguin Army video

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Al Gore's Penguin Army is a video spoofing An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary film about Al Gore's efforts to raise awareness of global warming. The video appeared on YouTube, where it was claimed to have been an amateur production by a 29-year old in Beverly Hills, California. Controversy emerged when the source of the video replied to inquiries made by the Wall Street Journal, which determined that "computer routing information" showed that those replies came from "a computer registered to DCI Group", a public relations and lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., ^[1] led exclusively by Republican party officials.^[2] DCI has counted corporations such as General Motors and ExxonMobil amongst its clients. ^[3]

1 Video
2 Controversy
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Video

The video, Al Gore's Penguin Army, combines several effective rhetorical devices. It is a series of straw man arguments building on an appeal to ridicule and an appeal to ignorance. It attempts to discredit Gore and the global warming awareness with which Gore is associated by presenting unflattering images of Gore and associating those images with absurd claims which are unlike anything that Gore has actually said. Those who are inclined to view Gore negatively and are ignorant of the actual content of the film might nonetheless attribute those claims to Gore. Because the ultimate end of the video is to discredit global warming by ridiculing the most visible harbinger of the threat, it is an ad hominem attack, attempting to raise doubt about global warming itself by attacking a person associated with it instead of investigating the science that supports the theory.

The video opens with a faux Newsweek cover quoting Eleanor Clift saying "If you liked March of the Penguins, you'll love An Inconvenient Truth." The quote is dated April 28, 2006. In the first scene of the video shows a "grossly overweight", umbrella-wielding parody of Al Gore, whose appearance is almost entirely lifted from the 90s animated version of The Penguin, rising from the bottom of the screen. In front of him are a group of Linux-style Tux penguins. Letting out a short, cackle, Gore then leads the Tux penguins to an ice cave with a picture of the "ManBearPig" used to spoof Gore's global warming message with similar hyperbole in the South Park episode of that name.

A screen descends from the ceiling and the words "Overview of Global Warming" appear on the screen. The Tux penguins appear surprised. The parody of Gore begins making the global warming presentation, pointing to various charts that show upward trends and making a monotonous quacking sound. The Tux penguins quickly fall asleep and snore audibly. The parody of Gore than goes to a slide titled "Due to Global Warming:" and, as ominous high-pitched wailing music arises, shows images captioned "Mid East crisis", "The skinyness of Lindsay Lohan", "Chris Daughtry being voted off American Idol", and "Heather Locklear & David Spade". The final slide contains only text, listing "Record Rain in New England (May 2006)", "Coldest Day in New York City (Jan 2005)" and "Boston Red Sox win World Series (Nov 2004)". While the first/top and second/middle entries are clear, unaltered references real comments Gore made, the last/bottom is both a jab at the popular team and Global warming's apparent effects.

In the video, the parody of Gore sees that the penguins are sleepy from the presentation, opens the umbrella and begins twirling it around. Its spiral oscillation pattern hypnotizes the Tux penguins, whose eyes begin to oscillate in the same way. The Tux penguins are sent to a theater with a marquee reading "Red State Theater", which is showing X-Men III. The movie draws a large cheering crowd of moviegoers shown in sillhouette. Three more Tux penguins are shown going to see An Inconvenient Truth. As the crowd noisily cheers and calls "yee-ha" to a still frame from X-Men III, the theater showing An Inconvenient Truth has a classic sound effect of crickets chirping. A hurricane twirls on the screen over a caption "Weather Systems 101" and the Tux penguins again fall asleep.

The scene cuts back to the parody of Gore in the ice cave in front of a group of sleeping Tux penguins, again making a monotone quacking sound while a speech balloon announces "You must take action to stop global warming". The screen then goes black and heavy metal guitar music plays while the phrase "Things you can do to Stop Global Warming", appears and things such as "Stop Exhaling", "Become Vegetarian", "Walk Everywhere (no matter the distance)" and "Take Cold Showers" scroll. The last scene is of a shark leaping up in the ice cave and snatching a lone Tux penguin, followed by the words "The End" on a black screen, before the Gore parody abruptly pops up and again uses his umbrella at the screen, cackling.

The video was purported to be an amateur production by "Toutsmith," a 29-year-old from Beverly Hills who claimed to have put it together in his basement. The Wall Street Journal traced an email from Toutsmith's Yahoo! Mail account to a computer from the DCI Group. ExxonMobil denied knowledge of the video, while DCI Group refused to comment on it.

[edit] Controversy

The Wall Street Journal consulted a professor of communications who described the spoof as "'Propaganda 101.' It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative image" of the former vice president."^[4] When asked if they created the video, DCI Group responded "We do not disclose the names of our clients, nor do we discuss the work we do on behalf of our clients."^[5] The Wall Street Journal also found that sponsored links to the Al Gore video had been placed on Google, and were taken down after DCI was contacted, noting that the identity of the party who paid for the sponsored links remained unknown.^[6]