Description
Book SynopsisScreening the Nonhuman draws connections between how animals represented on screen translate into reality. In doing so, the book demonstrates that consuming media is not a neutral act but rather a political one. The images humans consume have real world consequences for how animals are treated as actors, as pets, and in nature. The contributors propose that altering the representations of animals can change the way humans relate to non/humans. Our hope is for humans to generate more ethical relationships with non/humans, ultimately mediating reality both in terms of fiction and non-fiction. To achieve this end, film, television, advertisements, and social media are analyzed through an intersectional lens. But the book doesn't stop here. Each author creates counter-representational strategies that promise to unweave the assumptions that have led to the mistreatment of humans and non/humans alike.
Trade ReviewOur fellow animals have had rough treatment on film—like many of our fellow humans. But they cannot organize and protest like we can. The book you have before you gives us tools and evidence to make the case on their behalf. Freedom from harm is a basic animal right, and that applies to issues of representation as well as physical treatment. Their cause must be our cause. -- Toby Miller, author of Television Studies: The Basics
Finally, analyses of animal representations in popular culture from an explicitly Critical Animal Studies point of view. I enthusiastically recommend Screening the Nonhuman: Representations of Animal Others to those who want to enhance visual literacy while opening their minds to the revolutionary perspective of total liberation. -- Ian Purdy, Executive Director, Institute for Critical Animal Studies
A wonderfully insightful, provocative, and much needed book that combines critical theory, media analysis, and cultural studies with the ethics and urgency of animal liberation politics. This crossover work builds bridges between activism, academia, and the general public, and will surely inspire discussion and debate about the role of nonhuman animals in both film and society. -- Jason Del Gandio, author of "Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists"
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Critical Media Studies and Critical Animal Studies at the Crossroads, Amber George and J.L. Schatz Part I Chapter One: The Brown Wizard’s Unexpected Politics: Speciesist Fiction and the Ethics of The Hobbit, J.L. Schatz Chapter Two: The Passing Faerie and the Transforming Raven: Animalized Compulsory Re-covery, Endurance, and Dis/ability in Maleficent, Jennifer Polish Chapter Three: Jabbering Jaws: Reimagining Representations of Sharks Post-Jaws, Matthew Lerberg Chapter Four: Horseplay: Beastly Cinematic Performances in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, Stella Hockenhull Chapter Five: Would Bugs Bunny Have Diabetes?: The Realistic Consequences of Cartoons for Non/Human Animals, Amber E. George Part II Chapter Six: I Am Legend (2007), U.S. Imperialism, and the Liminal Animality of “The Last Man, Carter Soles Chapter Seven: Ape Anxiety: Intelligence, Human Supremacy, and Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Sean Parson Chapter Eight: The Vicious Cycle of Disnification and Audience Demands: Representations of the Non/Human in Martin Rosen’s Watership Down (1978) and The Plague Dogs (1982), Anja Höing & Harald Husemann Chapter Nine: The “Nature-Run-Amok” Cinema of the 1970s: Representation of Non/human Animals in Frogs and Orca, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and César Alfonso Marino Part III Chapter Ten: Cyberbeasts: Substitution and Trivialization of the Non/Human Animal in Home Movies, Memes, and Video Games, Joseph Anderton Chapter Eleven: Pet-Animals in the Concrete Jungle: Tales of Abandonment, Failures, and Sentimentality in San Hua and Twelve Nights, Fiona Yuk-wa Law Chapter Twelve: In Defense of Non/Humans: Mystification and Oppression in the Sports Mascoting Process, Guilherme Nothen and Michael Atkinson Chapter Thirteen: On Empathy, Anthropocentrism, and Rhetorical Tropes: An Analysis of Online “Save the Bees!” Campaign Images, Christina Victoria Cedillo
