Research Statement
February 2021
My research applies an ecocritical perspective to the study of popular media. Cultural depictions of animals and landscapes have long been neglected in the anthropocentric humanities; too often, they are only seen as significant in terms of their metaphoric relationship to the human condition. The study of non-human subjects can provide insights into the conceptualization of human alterity, as environmental attitudes are connected to colonial and racial politics, but one should not lose track of the animal or the land. My work is inspired by scholars like Steve Baker, Jonathan Burt, Robin Murray, and Joseph Heumann. I focus on how culture engages traumas related to ecological degradation, and the relationship of environmental issues to colonial violence and racism.
My dissertation identifies films about deadly animals and untamed landscapes as key texts for understanding cultural attitudes in an age of anthropogenic ecological crisis. Tales of humans in conflict with the non-human world possess a relevance missing from romanticized treatments of environmental themes. In my dissertation, I synthesize theory from media studies, animal studies, and cultural geography in order to perform close readings of illustrative texts. While accounting for the original contexts of these films, I emphasize their continuing significance. How might a film like Frogs, a horror satire responding to the 1970s environmentalist movement, resonate with contemporary viewers? Ecocritical scholars like Jhan Hochman, Scott MacDonald, and Paula Willoquet-Maricondi reject the possibility of popular entertainment productively engaging the public on ecological issues. Even more generous critics, like David Ingram, reject the films I study as reactionary. Lamenting the popularity of ‘objectionable’ texts has little value, and it misses the critical role of the scholar-teacher. Through my readings, I demonstrate that the texts I study can serve a valuable and progressive purpose when framed properly. Utilizing generic tropes, these films interrogate persistent fantasies and fears about the planet. The diegetic excesses found in these films make taken-for-granted concepts in Western epistemology (the Animal, Human, Nature, and Civilization) concrete and strange. Through melodramatic presentations, these films compel audiences to recognize and reconsider their assumptions about those categorizations.
In order to assess these films’ ecological worldviews, I analyze their presentations of animals and landscapes. Chapter One foregrounds the productive role of fantasy in the Jaws franchise, as these films utilize special effects to construct an iconic and improbable monstrous animal. Chapter Two shifts the focus to flesh and blood creatures, investigating how killer dog films (Cujo, White Dog, White God, etc.) interrogate understandings of animal agency and cognition, and how the on-set use of trained dogs deconstructs these films’ fantasies. Drawing on theory from Gilles Deleuze and Donna Haraway, Chapter Three demonstrates how films about close human-animal relationships (Monkey Shines, Orca, Phase IV, and Willard) interrogate humanist and post-humanist paradigms. Chapter Four discusses the relationship between landscape aesthetics and ideology, as three recent films (Black Water, The Grey, and The Shallows) tweak the classical expressions of aesthetic forms, thereby encouraging a respectful attitude towards the natural world’s alterity. Chapter Five provides an in-depth study of The Ghost and the Darkness and its manipulation of a nature preserve to construct a revisionist colonial fantasy that imagines a clear divide between Nature and Civilization. Chapter Six evaluates the rhetorical strategies of apocalyptic films seeking to convey environmentalist messages through narratives about whole ecosystems mobilizing against humanity (The Birds, Day of the Animals, Frogs, and Long Weekend). In the Conclusion, I consider how the specter of extinction haunts Animal Attack cinema, threatening to turn real animals into fantastic and monstrous memories.
Funded by competitive fellowships, my doctoral research integrates different analytical methods and scholarly fields. I have begun turning my dissertation into a manuscript. By engaging popular genres of extremity, I expand the purview of the environmental humanities and illuminate the potentials of unconventional texts for advancing critical understandings of how culture interacts with, and influences, environmental attitudes. I have found that my idiosyncratic subject intrigues and amuses a wide audience, making them receptive to the serious issues in my study. As discussed in my cover letter, I bring my research into interdisciplinary conversations through regular presentations at major conferences.
My next major project grows out of my interest in space, place, and production; it reconciles the physical and conceptual footprints left by movie productions. Film production impacts the locations in which shooting takes place in a material sense. The financial and ecological impact of these activities are debatable. When tax credits lure producers to impoverished areas, does this contribute to the local economy or divert resources away from vulnerable populations? These economic considerations should be weighed in conjunction with ecological concerns. Economists cite environmental factors when presenting film production as an attractive industry. In Courting Hollywood, Cantrell and Wheatcroft describe film as a low-impact and carbon neutral industrial process. Yet how much of this green veneer is simply the product of PR campaigns, like the Green is Universal initiative at Universal Studios? As with my previous work, this project will combine an industrial perspective with a cultural studies approach to the films produced by this process.
Critical race studies and its intersection with environmental justice literature will be a significant component of this project, as my case studies will be locations with majority non-white populations. I plan on splitting my focus between locations that have thriving production cultures (e.g., New Orleans and Atlanta) and areas where films are still shot and set, despite a lack of incentives (e.g., Detroit and Native American reservations). These locations reflect histories and policies defining physical spaces in relation to race and ethnicity. Each are also marked by distinct relationships between “human” and “natural” elements. New Orleans is at risk of disasters both natural and man-made (an increasingly imprecise distinction). I am interested in productions filmed in and around New Orleans that incorporate real disasters into their narratives (e.g. Déjà Vu, Hours, Deepwater Horizon). Recent crime films showcase Atlanta as an urban setting associated with car and consumer culture, though its identity gets elided by blockbusters shot in warehouse-studio spaces (the Marvel films and Pinewood Studios). Detroit epitomizes post-industrial decay; it is a former manufacturing hub associated with images of nature “retaking” crumbling structures. It now hosts dystopic and uncanny genre films. Meanwhile, the lack of development on Native American reservations can offer filmmakers scenes of natural beauty that feed into stereotypical understandings of indigenous peoples’ holistic relationships with the natural world (as seen in the films of Chloe Zhao). At the moment, I am orienting myself to the relevant literature and solidifying case studies.