""What's up with the Tr*mp administration using penguin iconography?" Asked reporter V Spehar of UnderTheDeskNews yesterday, after the official White House account posted an AI photo of their fearless leader holding hands with a penguin and marching toward Greenland on IG. The caption? "Embrace the penguin." RFK Jr. posted a similar image of his leader marching beside an intrepid penguin on X."
"As Spehar explains, the image of a lone penguin waddling toward parts unknown actually comes from Werner Herzog's 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World. In the doc, Herzog ventures to Anarctica, where he encounters one lone Adélie penguin breaking off from the rest of the crew to go his own way. But while the right has seized on the iconic image of breakaway penguin heading toward new horizons as a representation of Tr*mpian strength and self-sufficiency,"
Conservative accounts and political figures have started sharing AI-generated images featuring a leader and a penguin, using captions like 'Embrace the penguin.' The imagery appears on official and allied social channels, including an official White House account and rival campaign posts. The penguin motif traces to Werner Herzog's 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World, which shows a lone Adélie penguin breaking from its colony and walking toward the mountains. That penguin did not survive. Supporters frame the breakaway penguin as a symbol of independence and strength, but the original context portrays it as a fatal, foolish choice, making the appropriation misleading.
Read at Queerty
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]