POPULAR CULTURE & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
As Noël Sturgeon argues in her book, Environmentalism and Popular Culture, movies, TV shows, photography, advertising and other forms of popular culture have a profound impact on human views of nature and on what counts as human nature. As the French semiotician Roland Barthes argued brilliantly, labelling something natural or unnatural is a very powerful ideological tool. It puts your ideas beyond culture into a supposedly unchangeable realm of nature. Popular culture is one of the key sites where our ideas about what is natural and unnatural are formed. That's why carefully examining portrayals of the supposedly 'natural' is a key part of environmental justice critical analysis.
Take for example, the image below. It essentially equates Black women with leopards, a sexist and racist move, while also promoting the horrendous practice of the safari as a sexy adventure.
This site offers some important books, articles and sites that challenge oppressive claims about what is natural in popular analyses. It also offers some commercial sites tied to pop culture objects (films, cartoons, nature documentaries, eco-tourist sites, etc.) that embody some of these problems that readers can analyze for themselves.
Featured Site
- Pro and Con Native Opinions on Pocahontas. A great site on the popular Disney film which typifies the treatment of indigenous people as more a force of nature than human beings.
Some Pop Culture Sites Dealing with 'Nature'
- IMDB List of Nature Documentaries. Comprehensive guide to popular nature films.
- Bulldog Film's Children's Environmental Titles. Producer of numerous children's videos with environmental themes.
- Captain Planet cartoon.Superhero environmentalism on TV.
- The Emerald Forest. Full-length feature film full of well-intended but racist assumptions about tribes in a Brazilian rainforest.
- Environmental Film Festival. The largest of many, held annually in Washington, DC.
- Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Influential animated children's film about forest fairies under threat from rainforest developers. Also check out the second movie, FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue.
- National Geographic Society On-line. One of the (highly popular and highly problematic) sources for information on "nature" and "the environment."
- "Nature": PBS's documentary series. Long-running, very influential series.
- Planet Earth. The much lauded and most expensive nature documentary ever commissioned by the BBC.
- Captain Planet's Favorite Internet Site Links.Show topics are the references for links to pages on hazardous waste, endangered species, and pollution, etc.
A Sampling of Books & Articles on EJ & Pop Culture
Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010.
Allister, Mark Christopher, ed. Eco-Man: New Perspectives on Masculinity and Nature. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2004.
Bagemihl, Bruce. Biological Exhuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. NY: St. Martin's, 2000.
Baratta, Chris, ed. Environmentalism in the Realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars P, 2012.
Brereton, Pat. Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema. Bristol: Intellect, 2005.
Buckley, Ralf, ed. Environmental Impacts of Ecotourism. Oxford: CABI, 2004.
Campbell, Chris, and Erin Somerville, eds. "What is the Earthly Paradise?": Ecocritical Responses to the Caribbean.Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars P, 2007.
Canavan, Gerry, and Kim Stanley Robinson, eds. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Middleton: Wesleyan UP, 2014.
Carmichael, Deborah, ed. The Landscape of Hollywood Westerns: Ecocriticism in an American Film Genre. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 2006.
Carrigan, Anthony. Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment. London: Routledge, 2011.
Cox, Robert. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. London: Sage, 2013.
Crane, Kylie. Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives: Environmental Postcolonialism in Australia and Canada. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Dobrin, Sidney I., and Kenneth B. Kidd, eds. Wild Things: Children's Culture and Ecocriticism. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004.
Dobrin, Sidney, and Sean Morey, eds. Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature. Albany: State U of New York P, 2009.
Dunaway, Finis. Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
Giannachi, Gabriella, and Stewart Nigel, eds. Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005.
Ingram, David. Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema. Exeter: U of Exeter P, 2004.
Ingram, David. The Jukebox in the Garden: Ecocriticism and American Popular Music since 1960. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010.
Ivakhiv, Adrian. Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2013.
Jordan, Joe, ed. A Wilderness of Signs: Ethics, Beauty, and Environment after Postmodernism. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars P, 2006.
Kääpä, Pietari, and Tommy Gustafsson, eds. Transnational Ecocinema: Film Culture in an Era of Ecological Transformation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2013.
Lu, Sheldon, and Jiayan Mi, eds. Chinese Ecocinema: In the Age of Environmental Challenge. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2009.
Madureira, Marco. Ecocriticism in Disney/Pixar: Wall-E and the De-Greening Cycle. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2014.
Murray, Robin L., and Joseph K. Heumann. Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge. Albany: State U of New York P, 2009.
Murray, Robin L., and Joseph K. Heumann. Gunfight at the Eco-Corral: Western Cinema and the Environment. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 2012.
Murray, Robin L., and Joseph K. Heumann. That's All Folks?: Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2011
Myers, Jeffrey. Converging Stories Race, Ecology, and Environmental Justice in American Literature. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2005.
Pedelty, Mark. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2012.
Persels, Jeff, ed. The Environment in French and Francophone Literature and Film. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012.
Pezzulo, Phaedra. Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Travel, Pollution, and Environmental Justice. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007.
Pick, Anat, and Guinevere Narraway. Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human. New York: Berghahn, 2013.
Roos, Bonnie, and Alex Hunt, eds. Postcolonial Green: Environmental Politics and World Narratives. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2010.
Rust, Stephen, Salma Monani and Sean Cubitt, eds. Ecocinema Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2013.
Smith, Andrew, and William Hughes, eds. EcoGothic. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2013.
Smith, Lindsay Claire. Indians, Environment, and Identity on the Borders of America Literature: From Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Sturgeon, Noël. Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality and the Politics of the Natural. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2008.
Tobias, Ronald B. Film and the American Moral Vision of Nature: Theodore Roosevelt to Walt Disney. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 2011.
Whitley, David. The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation: From Snow White to Wall-E. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.
Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula, ed. Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2010.
Wright, Laura. 'Wilderness into Civilized Shapes': Reading the Postcolonial Environment. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2010.