''Al Gore's Penguin Army'' is a two-minute-long satirical webvideo posted on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

on May 24, 2006, spoofing

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...

and his movie ''

An Inconvenient Truth ''An Inconvenient Truth'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former vice president of the United States Al Gore's campaign to educate people about Climate change, global warming. The film features a slide s ...

''. There is evidence that the video is a product of the dishonest marketing technique of

astroturfing Astroturfing is the deceptive practice of hiding the Sponsor (commercial), sponsors of an orchestrated message or organization (e.g., political, economic, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from ...

. Despite all appearances of being an amateur production, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' discovered that the author of the video was using "a computer registered to

DCI Group DCI Group is an American public relations, lobbying and business consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 1996 as a consulting firm, and has since expanded its practice to become a public affairs company offering a ra ...

", a public relations and lobbying firm led exclusively by Republican party officials. At the time the video was made, DCI's clients included

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

and

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

. DCI has refused to comment on its involvement with the video.

Synopsis

The webvideo starts by mimicking a commercial film, produced by the fictional ''

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

Movie Report'' and quotes the real ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' article "Gore Redux" by

Eleanor Clift Eleanor Irene Clift (''née'' Roeloffs; born July 7, 1940) is an American political journalist, television pundit, and author. She is a contributor to MSNBC and blogger for '' The Daily Beast''. She is best known as a regular panelist on '' The ...

as a critic's recommendation. A black margin surrounds the viewing screen, artificially making the video appear as though it was created with archaic technology. An umbrella-wielding and clothed penguin, modeled after the

Batman Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

supervillain

The Penguin The Penguin (Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. The character made his first appearance in ''Detective Comics'' #5 ...

, with the face of Al Gore leads a group of smaller penguins, modeled after the computer operating system

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

's mascot Tux, into an ice cave. Gore shows the penguins a

slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...

presentation entitled "Overview of

Global Warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

" like a teacher or professor. At the start of the lecture, the penguins quickly become alarmed by the threat of global warming. Gore presents a sequence of scientific graphs while ironically stating "It's all very simple", repeatedly voicing "quack, quack" incoherently. The penguins all fall asleep from boredom. Continuing the presentation, Gore asserts that global warming is the cause of seemingly nonsensical happenings so that the video satirizes the real Gore's claims about global warming: turmoil in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, celebrity news, meteorological events that suggest that the Earth is not in fact warming, and upsets in sports. After ending the lecture, Gore twirls his umbrella to hypnotize three penguins, as The Penguin can do in the Batman media franchise. He leads them forth to the " Red State Theater", implied to be in

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

. Large crowds of people and penguins are going to watch '' X-Men: The Last Stand''. Only those three penguins, however, go to watch ''An Inconvenient Truth''; likewise, they all fall asleep from boredom. Back in the ice cave and lecture hall, Gore orders a number of penguins to "take action to stop Global Warming!", oblivious to their all sleeping. The video then shifts to a text-based scene "Things you can do to Stop Global Warming", suggesting viewers to "stop exhaling" and "walk everywhere no matter the distance", among other absurdities. In the last scene, a lone penguin is walking in the cave when a shark rises and returns to the water, taking along the penguin to eat. Finally, the video presents the text "The End" on a black screen. Al Gore abruptly appears on the screen and sounds some

evil laughter Evil laughter or maniacal laughter is a distinct laughter that is typically exhibited by villains in fiction. It is associated with the horror genre. Evil laughter may be written as ''muahahaha'' or ''bwahahaha''. They are used by supervilla ...

; he twirls his umbrella at the direction of the real-life viewers to hypnotize them,

breaking the fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th centu ...

. The viewer is left warned that Al Gore is attempting to trick him into believing absurdities.

Authorship

The video, which has a "home-made, humorous quality", was posted on

by "Toutsmith," a person who identified himself as a 29-year-old from

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...

. The video was released on May 24, 2006, the same date as the release of ''An Inconvenient Truth''. ''

'' journalist Antonio Regalado noticed that, despite the amateur production values, a link to the video was the first sponsored listing when he performed a

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

search for

, suggesting to him that someone was paying money to advertise this 'amateur' video. Regalado examined routing information on an e-mail sent by Toutsmith to Regalado and found that the e-mail had been sent from a computer associated with the

, in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

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." The Wall Street Journal also found that sponsored links to the Al Gore video had been placed on

, and were taken down after DCI was contacted by the Journal. The identity of the party who paid for the sponsored links remains unknown as of 2006.

Opinions

The ''Wall Street Journal'' consulted a professor of communications who described the spoof as "'

Propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

101' and said: "It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative image f Al Gore"

References

External links

Original YouTube Video
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060813174311/http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Parody_of_Al_Gore_Film_tied_0803.html , date=2006-08-13
Slashdot posting
Climate change denial Cultural depictions of Al Gore Films about penguins Parodies of films Political forgery 2006 YouTube videos American short films

Synopsis

Authorship

Opinions

See also

References

External links