Can you surf the East Australian Current, Finding Nemo-style?

The animated movie Finding Nemo is responsible for most children’s (and parents') image of the East Australian Current.

Marlin: “I need to get to the East Australian Current – E A C.”
Crush: “You’re ridin' it dude. Check it out!”

And so Marlin, the father of little clownfish Nemo, rides on the back of a turtle as they hitch a ride on the East Australian Current all the way to Sydney.

‘Surfing’ the East Australian Current.

But did Hollywood tell us the truth about what happens in our own backyard?
Well, the movie may have added just a little poetic license to the real ways of the ocean. The East Australian Current is not the fast-flowing warp-tube as it’s portrayed in the movie – it’s an even better ride than that.

Let the current flow

The East Australian Current plays a crucial role in our east-coast climate and ecosystems. As it is World Oceans Day this weekend (June 8), it’s a good time to have a closer look at the big current in our own backyard and what it does for us.

Let’s start with what’s correct in the movie. The East Australian Current does flow along the East coast of Australia, obviously. And it does flow southward from the Great Barrier Reef. Speeds in the core of the EAC are among the strongest in the South Pacific, up to 7km an hour.

The East Australian Current – more a ribbon than a tube. Eric Oliver

The movie would have you think that the East Australian Current is a narrow jet that you can jump in and out of as your thrill-seeking self desires. But actually the real East Australian Current is much bigger and much wilder than in the movie – just not so conducive to surfing.

It transports a staggering 40 million cubic metres of water southward each second. That is the equivalent of 16,000 Olympic swimming pools flowing along our coastline, every second. The current is almost 100km wide, and more than 1.5km deep – in fact, more like a ribbon than a tube.

Why does the East Australian Current exist?

The wind systems over the ocean and the spin of the Earth cause water in both hemispheres to slowly flow toward the equator in what’s called the subtropical gyres (also where all our plastics ends up in the infamous garbage patches).

Obviously, the water that flows towards the equator has to go somewhere. It does so in strong currents trapped tightly against the eastern coasts of landmasses.

Our East Australian Current is part of a family of five. All subtropical ocean basins have one of these western boundary currents:

1. the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean
2. the Brazil Current in the South Atlantic Ocean
3. the Agulhas Current in the Indian Ocean
4. the Kuroshio Current in the North Pacific Ocean
5. the East Australian Current in the South Pacific Ocean.

Each of these is set up by the same wind patterns. The theory that explains western boundary currents was developed by Norwegian oceanographer Harald Sverdrup and was one of the major accomplishments of physical oceanography in the 1940s.

Here come the eddies

Once the East Australian Current reaches New South Wales, the current breaks up into a train of giant, 100km-wide vortices.

These so-called eddies are giant droplets of warm tropical water, and they slowly move south while rotating anti-clockwise at 5 to 10km per hour. The amount of eddies passing along the NSW coast is so large that some have termed the region “Eddy Avenue”.

For many people, the eddies and strength of the East Australian Current become worth millions of dollars as the Sydney to Hobart yacht race kicks off on Boxing Day each year. If you’re on the wrong side of the eddy, the current is against you in your race south. Choosing the right path around the eddies is big business.

Apart from yachts, the EAC also transports marine species southward with tropical fish – including Marlin and Dory in their search to find Nemo – finding themselves in subtropical latitudes.

A change in the EAC

Climate change is already having an impact on the East Australian Current. The part south of Sydney has warmed up very fast, much faster than most of the rest of the ocean. And this warming is expected to continue in the future, with the current probably getting faster and stronger as well.

The warmer water being carried south to Tasmania already has an impact on marine life there. With warmer water, new species such as the spiny sea urchin arrive.

These new species, as well as the warmer water itself, slowly destroy Tasmania’s kelp forests, which support unique marine ecosystems, transforming them into rocky barrens.

One of the most iconic kelp species, Macrosystis pyrifera or “giant kelp”, forms underwater forests up to 30m tall and is rapidly disappearing along Tasmania’s shores.

The giant kelp forests off Tasmania are quickly disappearing.

Such large relocations of marine ecosystems can occur more often in a warming ocean. Species will be forced to move southward as their water temperature “at home” increases.

While this might be bad for all ecosystems, it is particularly dire for species now living in Tasmania. Unlike the tropical species in Queensland or the temperate species in New South Wales, which can move southwards (albeit not without problems), Tasmanian species have nowhere to go.

If they try to move southward they encounter the edge of the continental shelf. With the next piece of habitable shelf more than 3,000km to the south in Antarctica, that’s the end of the line.

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"Other" Fish in the Sea: "Finding Nemo" as an Epic Representation of Disability

"Finding Nemo," 2003. Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. Directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Lee Unkrike. Written by Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds; based on a story by Andrew Stanton. Produced by Graham Walters.

Reviewed by Ann Millett, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The animated feature "Finding Nemo" swept the box office last summer, and audiences of all ages and critics alike were overwhelmed by how a seemingly simple story had made such a splash. Recently having a second life on DVD, the film has become the most financially successful film of 2003 and the largest grossing animated feature of all time, outshining Disney/Pixar's previous hits Toy Story I and II and Monsters, Inc., as well as its competing summer blockbusters. "Finding Nemo" surfaced as a characteristic Disney epic adventure and heart-warming coming of age tale with resplendent twists. The plot follows a young clown fish, Nemo (Alexander Gould), who is separated from his father, Marlin (Albert Brooks), by the human intervention of a scuba diver and held captive in the office fish tank of a Sydney, Australia dentist (Bill Hunter). Nemo is rescued through the joint efforts of exotic, yet familiarly goofy, ironically down-to-earth, and cleverly caricatured populations of marine creatures. Seagulls, pelicans, turtles, manta rays, jellyfish, squid, starfish, sharks, whales, lobsters, other curious crustaceans, and a glorious array of tropical fish in all configurations and designs animate the film's lavish oceanic world. The creatures are not only strikingly heterogeneous in appearance, but also have international accents or dialects and personas that convey a variety of social styles. This cast of characters, their tongue-in-cheek, witty dialogue, and appropriately colorful depictions add to the appeal and smash success of the film, as vivid and illusionistic artistry positions the viewer as a visually awed undersea explorer.

I, too, was reeled in by the tempo, humor, and visual splendor of the film, as one who appreciates and studies visual culture. Further, as a disability studies-minded viewer, I saw far more beneath the spectacular surface. In "Finding Nemo", I discovered sunken treasure—a multifaceted representation of disability. The protagonist, Nemo, displays a small, or "deformed," fin that is a congenital result of a fatal attack on his mother and sibling eggs—a corporeal characteristic that the story surrounds, yet does not drown in. In an aquatic natural world where species maintain characteristic, standardized appearances, Nemo is marked as visually and socially different, yet hardly inadequate. He explains that he has a "lucky" fin when questioned by his classmates, who then offer their own explanations of distinctive physical quirks: a squid confesses to having a lazy tentacle, a seahorse boasts of his "H2O intolerance." Nemo's peers accept him, even admire his self-confident attitude and plucky spirit, because in this diverse "school" of fish, everybody's different. Considering such characteristics as "disabilities" may seem absurd; however, this makes a valid parallel point about many physical differences and their assumed consequences.

There is suggestion in the film that Nemo may not be able to swim as well as other fish, particularly by his father, but no evidence supports this, or at least Nemo swims well enough with his own adapted methods to get where he needs and wants to go. In true to life fashion, Nemo continually negotiates and battles restrictive assumptions about him based on his impaired fin, to both positive and negative results. Disabled people are commonly underestimated, often most painfully by those who should have the most faith in us, who love us, and know us best, exemplified by Marlin's loving, but potentially damaging overprotection of his son. Marlin smothers Nemo, sequesters him near their home, attempts to speak for him, and fears others' condemnation to the point that he avoids social interaction. Marlin enacts his son's social exclusion, continually embarrasses and frustrates the willful Nemo, and causes rifts in their relationship. To defiantly establish his independence, Nemo enters into the drastically deeper section of the sea surrounding his community termed the "drop off," where he is captured. His disability plays a role in his fate, yet not because he is inherently deficient or vulnerable, and that same disability enables his return home, for his marking identifies him for those who search—it makes him memorable. Disability becomes part of Nemo's personal history and social identity, visually marking him as a survivor.

"Finding Nemo" proves to be an unconventional, transgressive representation of disability. In conventional narrative, disability becomes the sole characteristic of one-dimensional characters that most often require physical change, repair, or elimination in order for the narrative to maintain a supposedly preferable state of social and psychic order, or "normality." Such narratives tend to fall into generic categories that typecast disabled characters as misfortunate tragedies or sentimental, largely patronized heroes. Conversely, "Finding Nemo" paints disability as a flavorful ingredient in cultural diversity—both remarkable, yet necessarily everyday, perhaps even disguised in the tides of life. Indeed, to the mainstream audience, "Finding Nemo" isn't "about" disability at all, because physical difference isn't a glaring spectacle in the film that signals danger or elicits pity, as viewers may be more used to witnessing. Further, disability is presented as a socially constructed character quality, rather than a state of the body to which value judgments are assigned. The fact that the role of disability floats past the mainstream audience and most critics of "Finding Nemo" without notice perhaps attests on a metanarrative level to how disability may afford a privileged viewing perspective, such that "seeing" disability occurs more immediately for a disability-aware audience who identify with the characters and discover deeper layers of meaning in the film.

In addition to Nemo, various eccentric aquatic bodies and personalities flow in and out of the screen in harmonies of difference, many of which may be considered disabilities. Many of the characters' humorous idiosyncrasies could be called "abnormalities." Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a lively blue tang who becomes Marlin's sidekick on the quest for Nemo's rescue, has chronic short-term memory loss. The "reason" for this is not revealed, as the film unconventionally does not medicalize or otherwise attribute a cause for disability. Dory's chronic condition causes pitfalls, yet she can also read written English and speak whale, and due to her openly sociable personality and penchant for adventure, Dory initiates communication with many other species that results in progress for the journey. Dory assumes agency in the plot, can remember through adaptive problem solving when it is vitally crucial, and displays her "abnormality" as comical charm. Further, she professes an overall consciousness for the film that life is inevitably a series of obstacles, as well as opportunities for adventure, and that one must, as Dory joyfully expresses in her repeated slogan, "keep on swimming." In addition, she and Marlin meet sea turtles that are more than150 years old, but hardly suffer from their age—they ironically speak in the tongue of youthful beach bums, referring to Marlin as "dude" as they lead the duo to Sydney. Marlin proves emotionally disabled by the traumatic loss of his wife and chronic anxiety; vegetarian-aspiring sharks undergo a 5-step program; and in the Sydney fish tank, Nemo meets a very motley, some might call neurotically ill, group, including Gurgle (Austin Pendleton), a royal gamma obsessed with germ-free cleanliness and Deb (Vicki Lewis), a white humbug damsel fish who routinely misrecognizes herself in reflection from the tank wall as an imaginary twin sister, Flo. Their leader fish, Gill (Willem Dafoe), like Nemo, came from the sea, longs to return, and is physically distinguished—marked by scars. Also like Nemo, this trademark signifies wisdom, "street" smarts, and rites of passage. All of the remarkable, "abnormal," even freakish characters in "Finding Nemo" swim with and against the undertow, and neither "overcome" their so-called physical and intellectual "problems," nor prevail "in spite of" them, as conventional narrative and stereotypes would prescribe. And in graphic illustration, they far exceed even two dimensions.

However, these aspects are greatly overlooked in the film, perhaps poignantly asserting the film's largely unprecedented progressiveness. After all, more classic animated fairytales have been known for their dubious, and sometimes publicly criticized sexist and ethnocentric biases. The princesses are stolen property, properly saved and wed, while evil characters are laden with non-Western, non-white stereotypes. Further, malice is often embodied in physically "deformed," and otherwise visually "abnormal" characters, marked, like Nemo, by displayable difference and often specifically placed on display to provide a counter-example to "normal." By contrast, "Finding Nemo" brings elements of social and cultural diversity to life in educational marine biology lessons of visually distinguishable, sometimes competing, yet non-hierarchical species. One would have a difficult time differentiating which kinds of bodies are on display in this splendid spectacle, and to what significance. "Finding Nemo's" success may have to do with its refreshing nature and escape from the typical good versus evil dichotomies in favor of flavorful cultural relativism. "Other" fish populate the sea. Nemo's disability, visually defined by his unique fin, affects, yet does not dictate his daily life, and initiates moments of joy and self-discovery. "Finding Nemo" becomes an act of rescue, maturation, and acceptance of self and others for all the characters. Marlin learns to trust Nemo and his self-defined abilities, as prescriptive stereotypes of disability are tested and disproved and the protagonist's triumph is enabled.

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