With the discussion of de-extinction of the passenger pigeon, I thought this was an interesting and related video of how the reincorporation of a species can change the environment around it in such drastic ways. By reincorporating the passenger pigeon into nature, many different considerations have to be taken on how the integration of this animal into the wild will affect the environment and social construction (such as the food chain and habitat location) of nature. The passenger pigeon could force other animals out of the niches they currently hold, which could cause either a positive or negative affect on the environment (such as the incorporation of invasive species). It is a very interesting topic to consider.
In this video clip, found on Youtube, a certain video provider called Barcroft TV shows a wild lion get flown into the air by a buffalo in Kruger National Park, South Africa. This clip was edited from the original footage that an eye witness account had filmed to fit the type of message this video source wanted to portray: sensationalism of natural occurrences. This video is a direct example of some of the very arguments that Malamud had raised in his essay “Zoo Spectatorship”, such as the voyeurism that humans have for animals, especially in feeding and dangerous situations. The TV provider that edited this clip had purposely manipulated the videos original footage to create a more attention grabbing, sensationalized video in order to pick up on the natural voyeuristic feeling that people have when viewing animals, such as Malamud had discussed in his essay. In his essay Malamud tells his readers directly that the pleasure we get from watching animals eat/be in dangerous situations is “not about animals but about people, and that it is about us in disturbing ways” (Malamud 224). This feeling of excitement that humans get from watching animals eat, as he argues is not a positive feeling of curiosity and education, but rather has a darker meaning.
In this video, a female lion is attacking and constraining a wild buffalo, and out of the side of the video another buffalo attacks the lion, subsequently flipping the lion 5 meters into the air. The video was collected by tourists of the safari, who were riding in jeeps in order to view the animals. This video is further exaggerated by being shown in slow motion, and taking snap shots of the lion mid-air. The narrator of the video has an Australian, dramatic accent, which is the exact type of narrator that most viewers would expect to have for an animal safari video, a type of intense natural type of voice that will further exaggerate the viewers’ feeling of the natural phenomena that the video is depicting. The video is clipped into many short segments of clips, showing only the lions patiently waiting to attack, the lion trying to restrain the buffalo, and then many repeats of the lion getting flipped into the air, which shows us that the main purpose of the video is not to show the details of what was occurring, but rather to highlight the “action” that had taken place.. There is subtle, dramatic music in the background, trying to further our sensationalism of the buffalo attack by stimulating our feelings of danger and excitement. The video holds little to no educational information of lions nor wild buffalos, and rarely shows any human interaction with the animals. It begs to ask, if this video does not hold any educational purpose, what purpose does it really hold for our viewing?
Malamud would argue that this video is created only for our pleasure, much like zoos and other types of animal related videos. This video shows no educational purpose; its sole purpose is to excite our senses. As Malamud has pointed out, the ability for humans to watch over animals in their activities is a way of showing the binary opposition of humans and animals. “Spectators’ opportunity to watch everything animals do resembles on some level the power and pleasure that characterizes the disorder of voyeurism” (Malamud 221). He argues that the ability to watch over animals, in a more natural habitat such as this safari, or in a more common zoo setting, is the real reason that humans enjoy viewing animals, not for educational purposes. The empowerment of the individual viewers is even furthered by the fact that we are able to view this video endlessly from an enormous distance away from the scene of the action. By posting this video onto the internet, we can further distance ourselves from the animals involved in the video, and view them over and over again without their knowledge. This directly furthers the power we hold over animals in the binary opposition of human and animal.
These types of actions, as Malamud would depict, have nor true indication of how the wild truly is for the animals, just the types of scenes that will grab the most attention from the viewers. As Siebert has said, as quoted in Malamud’s essay “[nature shows offer] simultaneity of the unseen; of things you’d never see in a thousand walks in the wild” (Siebert 48). The types of nature shows broadcasted on TV, such as those on the Discovery Channel and Nat Geo wild, will often depict scenes and images of nature that are extremely uncommon, and these are the types of scenes that will produce the biggest exhilaration from the viewers. The uncommon action furthers the sensationalism added into this video.
Although nature shows in general “can help offer viewers expose to animals’ worlds in ways that [Malamud] believes zoos cannot” (Malamud 232), it is obvious that this video’s purpose is not to educate the viewers about the ways in which lions and buffalos act in nature, but rather to utilize the natural voyeurism that humans have towards viewing animals.
Malamud, Randy. Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Print.
Siebert, Charles. “The Artifice of the Natural: How TV’s Nature Shows Make All the Earth a Stage.” Harper’s. February 1993: 43-51
I found a news article posted earlier today on Time today talking about Laika. It interesting to see things we talk about in class show up in modern day news.
The talks we have had the past couple of days has got me thinking about animal intelligence, and I couldn’t help but to think about the tests showing crow intelligence. This video also talks briefly about something we have talked about in class, the thought of how we value intelligence based on our own idea of what intelligence is. Another amazing video about a crow intelligence is on Ted Talks, which discusses how intelligent crows really are.
In this product made by Cabot Creamery, found right in Lower Farinon, the message of what the conditions the animals used in this product endure is misleading. This stick of butter depicts 4 cows, in seemingly good health, mindlessly able to graze throughout the thousands of acres of fresh green grass on the traditional farm setting that is available to them. The front of the package is labeled “Natural Creamery” in distinguishable lettering, being able to be clearly seen through its green font, trying to show people that their product is “natural”. Although many people still view this type of farm setting as the normal setting for most farmers, this is sadly not the case. This is a smart way of advertising the butter product this company is trying to sell due to the trickery this image uses. Many people actually want the animals that they eat or the animals that are used in the process of producing their food to live a happy and healthy life, and for many, this simple picture will satisfy their desires. These types of advertisements are purely a way of setting a peace to the mind of the users, and many will not think about where their food really comes from, just if the product says that these animals used were happy and healthy.
This image exploits what John Berger would describe as “animals of the mind”. Berger, would argue that we view animals in our mind, and then it is these expectations that our mind creates that dictate how we view animals, not due to how animals truly are in their nature; “They are objects of our ever-extending knowledge” (Berger, 16). The typical image that people would associate with cows/making butter is a farmer manually milking a cow out on his ranch, and churning the butter manually. Therefore, the advertisement that this company utilizes wants to mimic the imagery most people associate with butter, not only so that they will associate this product to butter, but also because they want their food to be made from happy natural animals. People imagine what animals are generally like in their head, creating these grand images and depictions of “animals of the mind”, but once the people actually see the reality of these animals, they will be utterly disappointed. Most of these cows live an unhappy and sick life, living to only fractions of their wild life expectancy, and most are never exposed to the green grass that is depicted in this picture.
Jonathan Safran Foer would want us to look directly at the natural setting that is depicted in this image, and know right away that the “natural” that is company proclaims isn’t really even a plausible thing. Factory animals, as he says, “In a narrow sense it is a system of industrialized and intensive agriculture in which animals — often housed by the tens or even hundreds of thousands — are genetically engineered, restricted in mobility, and fed unnatural diets (which almost always include various drugs, like antimicrobials). Globally, roughly 450 billion land animals are now factory farmed every year. (There is no tally of fish.) Ninety-nine percent of all land animals eaten or used to produce milk and eggs in the United States are factory farmed. So although there are important exceptions, to speak about eating animals today is to speak about factory farming” (Foer, 34). Natural, as he says, isn’t even a defined term, how can you define something as natural, when 99% of the farming done in the United States is done in a factory setting? He would reminisce on how only 2 generations, virtually all farms were family farms, and would think about how all of those farms have been replaced with factory farms that have no legal laws on the treatment of animals. Foer would want us to see this tactic that the advertising is trying to exploit and understand that the cows’ lives are not like how they are portrayed, so we can become more conscience consumers.
Works Cited:
Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 3-28. Print.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.
I found this picture in an advertisement website, where the advertisement is promoting “A day of being a zookeeper”. Therefore, this picture is a perfect way to represent what a great day you can have by being a zookeeper! At first glance, this picture looks as if both the zookeeper (the woman in the photo) and the serval (type of cat) are content with their situation during the moment of the picture. The zookeeper is wearing a smile on her face that runs from ear to ear, the serval and the zookeeper are both seemingly sharing a hug, and it even looks as if the serval is enjoying the hug; her ears are perked up as if it were a dog when it hears the word “walk”, and it even looks like she has a smile running through her face. This image makes the viewer assume that every person in this image (including the serval) is enjoying the moment at the zoo. But as you look deeper into the picture, you can see that there is a more critical perspective of this image.
The first part of the image that can be dissected is the background zoo. Tall grasslands, woods, savannahs, and other places associated to these types of habitats are mostly where servals are habituated. Concrete and boulders, as shown in the background, are not. Berger would say that the only reason we believe that this is a happy picture of a serval and a zookeeper is because of our nostalgia of zoo’s and how we see these types of animals as magical because of this great nostalgia of something we are not used to seeing. By remembering the way these zoo animals were in our nostalgia, we are creating in our minds the image of a serval, and by creating this image we are devaluing the actual animal for how it is because this animal will never live up the expectations our minds create.
Alice Walker would look at the way the animal actually feels, rather than where it is located. At closer look, the eyes of the serval tell its real emotions. The serval looks fiercely focused into space, which in many animal languages, is a sign of basically saying “back off”. Secondly, the “smile” can be interpreted as the serval’s hiss, also a sign of “back off”. The serval seems to be actually trying to push its self away from the zookeeper, instead of into the zookeeper.
By searching zookeeper into the internet, I knew I would be able to find an image that seems so inviting and loving towards animals, but could also be shown to have a more critical side to how we as humans are related to animals.
Works Cited:
Berger, John. Why Look At Animals?. New York: Vintage International, 1977. Print.
Walker, Alice. “Am I Blue?”. Other Nations. Baylor University Press. 182-187. Print.
In class we have been discussing a lot about the different ways images can depict animals, and in particular the 2 different images of the mice have stuck in my mind. These two pictures are especially interesting to me because I actually have pet mice in my dorm room (don’t tell residence life!). I was able to see the non-personal side of these pet mice when I was first unfamiliar to them grow into a personal familiarity that shows a uniqueness to each one of them.
Also, some of the pictures I’ve taken of them are remarkably similar to the ones in class.
My name is Michael Astor, and I am a sophomore (Class of 2017) studying Biochemistry. I have many different interests outside of academics that are both through campus activities and through personal desires. On campus I am involved in a few different clubs, such as the Lafayette Environmental Awareness Program (LEAP), which helps raise awareness on and off campus about environmental issues, Lafayette VETS Club, which volunteers at a local animal shelter and performs other animal related activities, and the Racquetball Club. Along with these clubs I am involved in Excel Research in the Chemistry department, as well as an IDEAL research project studying the feral cat population on Lafayette’s campus. Off campus, I enjoy many outdoor activities such as football, basketball, cycling, working out, and hiking/camping; essentially anything that has to do with the outdoors. To me, being outside brings such a thrill and bewilderment that the confines of the indoors cannot provide. If I am not able to be found somewhere around campus, I can most likely be seen riding my bike around or doing something relating to the outdoors. I am actually hoping to participate in a bike race this October, in which I’ll be racing a half century (50 mile bike ride)!
Like most of you, I took this class because the course is not only interesting, but also fulfills the writing requirement. Although this is the case, I decided to take this class due to my deep interest in anything animal related. Although I am a biochemistry major, my career interests are to become a practicing veterinarian.
I am hoping to better myself not only as a writer through this class, but learn about how the general public views animals so I can apply these new ideas and thoughts to my future career as a veterinarian.
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