Screening the Nonhuman

Representations of Animal Others in the Media

Contributions by Joseph Anderton, Michael Atkinson, Fernando Pagnoni Berns, Christina Victoria Cedillo, Amber E. George, Stella Hockenhull, Anja Höing, am Husemann, Fiona Yuk-wa Law, Matthew Lerberg, César Marino, Guilherme Nothen, Sean Parson, Jennifer Polish, J.L. Schatz, Carter Soles Edited by Amber E. George, J.L. Schatz

Publication date:

27 April 2016

Length of book:

238 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498513746

Screening 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.

Introduction: 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

Our 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.