https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXLbQrK6cXw

Disney’s 2010 film, Oceans, is a nature documentary that explores the marine species found throughout the five oceans on Earth. This particular trailer for the film that I chose to analyze begins with the words narrated by Pierce Bronsan. He tells the audience that this film will take you below the seas, “Disney Nature invites you on a journey through our planet’s five oceans, to discover never before seen worlds through the eyes of the creatures that live there.” It depicts various scenes of the diverse wildlife that embodies the five oceans. It shows baby turtles that arise from the sands of a beach and scrambled their way toward the ocean. It shows animals kissing, playing, and embracing each other. It shows a parent and child animal hugging and holding. It displays species coexisting amongst each other- same species and differing species alike. This tells the audience that most of these organisms depicted are social beings as humans are. These creatures are not isolated from other species or from others in its own genus, as they would be if they were in an aquarium. Many of the scenes showcase organisms that are either staring straight into the camera or looking at another animal. The scene when Bronsan says “through the eyes of the creatures that live there” it shows the scene of seal that rises up from the icy water and kisses its mother.

The music used in this trailer is called “Wonderful” by Gary Go. This is an uplifting song that has the repeating lyrics, “say I am wonderful” and ends with “we are wonderful.” These lyrics help also with the scenes used to create a connection with the audience that humans are not the only social beings on Earth. Humans are not the only organism that can have emotions, thoughts, or communication. Sprinkled throughout the trailer are sound bites of certain marine species making either chirps, howls, or other noises.

Several portions of this trailer correlate to points made by Randy Malamud in “The Zoo Spectatorship.” Malamud does not extend much positive thoughts toward zoos or aquariums. Malamud would likely argue that what this trailer depicts is different than what most videos about animals do. Malamud writes about the repulsive act of viewing animals from a distance in an unnatural environment. In this trailer, the cinematography requires the camera to be up-close- and in the sense an active member in the scenes with the wildlife. There is no distance between the camera and the marine species. The audience views the species in their most natural state and their most natural daily interactions.

Albeit a main reason for making this trailer/film was profits (probably a huge factor), I do believe that there is a large educational component as well. The audience takes away the difference between what viewing animals in a zoo or aquarium and viewing them in their natural environment- something that Malamud would appreciate. Definitely there is an entertainment factor involved for the audience; however it does not disrespect or patronize the animals involved as it would if this film was a documentary about how animals in a zoo or aquarium interact.

An interesting note to take into account is that when I was doing some research into this film, I found out that the original French version of the film is about twenty minutes longer than the North American version. Those twenty minutes depicts violent massacres of sea animals, recreated through visual effects to demonstrate some of the negative aspects of human activity on the environment. Is poses an interesting question in regards to why did Disney choose to omit those scenes from the North American viewers.

Sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3p0EFtJIn8

This video is titled “A Cat’s Guide to Training Your Human” and I found it by searching the word “cat” on Youtube. However, after watching this video, I learned that there is an entire youtube page dedicated to videos of the same two cats called “Cole and Marmalade.” Although most of the clips only include the cats (there are only two total in the video), a few of the clips also show a male human. The cats appear to be very willing to approach the human, so it likely that the human in the video owns the cats.

The video is a series of clips that is originally introduced as a cat’s explanation of how to get a human to do things in the cat’s favor. However, it seems like the real purpose of the video is to reflect on the “silly” and somewhat humorous things that cats often do. Throughout the video, different captions are displayed on the screen which provide the steps to be used when “training your human”. Following each caption is a corresponding video clip that shows these the scenarios taking place. For example, one caption says “When they clean the litter box, use it immediately afterwards”. This caption is followed by a clip that shows a human emptying a litter box and a cat going into the litter box immediately after. Other captions say “Keep them active. Leave fur.. cat litter… cardboard shreds.. and dead bugs around the home… so the humans feel like they have a purpose.” The clips following these captions show cats making messes and a human cleaning up afterward. Several captions and corresponding video clips similar to these are shown throughout the video. There is also background music in the video that is somewhat silly and is similar to the type of music that is often played in movies when people are trying to be sneaky.

Although this video may have been meant to be humorous and to reach out to other cat owners who can relate to these situations, there are also several parts of this video that correspond with points made by Randy Malamud in The Zoo Spectatorship. In his writing, Malamud writes “One of the pleasures of visiting a zoo is feeding the animals. The act is generous and the pleasure is innocent, although both derive from a base of superiority and power.” This video does not primarily how cats being fed,  it certainly projects similar ideas about superiority and power. Although this video is about cats who think that they hold the power in the household, this “power” is shown in a sarcastic manner that is laughed at by those who view the video. Those who watch this video are reminded that humans are in fact “in charge” of animals whether or not the animal accepts this idea. The sarcasm serves to reinforce the dominance of the human who created this video by pointing out the absurdity of a cat’s imagined power.

Malamud may also argue that this video and other similar videos about animals create a distance between humans and animals.  In Zoo Spectatorship, he discusses the way in which “computers promise ultimate control” because animals on the internet are decontextualized due to their lack of physical presence to the viewers (234). He goes on to discuss the way in which the internet allows humans to view animals without dealing with the negative aspects that would accompany an actual interaction with an animal (ex. “the smell of shit”). This gives humans the ability to pick and choose what aspects of the animal they would like to experience while ignoring other less favorable aspects of the animal. The ability to do this creates a separation between the human and animal because the human’s idea of the animal may become distorted. Although Malamud also discusses positive aspects of computers, these ideas to not always apply in regards to this video. For example, Malamud mentions that computers “distance viewers even further from animals, but compensate with more (and instant) data and knowledge (234). This knowledge may be acquired through educational animal videos, but most Youtube videos including “A Cat’s Guide to Training Your Human” are for pure entertainment and lack any educational information.

Although the creator of this video most likely took the time to create the video because he loves and is amused by his cats, Randy Malamud would most likely have several problems with it. Several aspects of “A Cat’s Guide to Training Your Human” correspond with Malamud’s discussions about human-animal power relationships and the separations between humans and animals. This video and many other videos on Youtube may simply be meant to be humorous. However, these videos may have negative consequences on the relationship between humans and animals.

Malamud, Randy. Zoo Spectatorship. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Print.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB_2nwNDSrQ

I discovered this video whilst searching “wild lions” on youtube. It immediately caught my eye because it combined two of my favorite things: soccer and lions. The video raises awareness about wild lions and their diminishing habitat, shows the amazing interaction humans and lions can share, and serves as an advertisement for a suit. The video opens with self-proclaimed lion expert Kevin Richardson explaining his personal history with lions which contained vast experience of protecting and bonding with lions. The video opens with Kevin receiving a huge bear hug by a male lion. The video continues with Kevin walking next to the lion in a long view shot that encompasses the landscape. Kevin narrates the problems lions have in today’s world, all the while showing his amazing control with lions. Eventually, a birds eye view of three lions and Kevin with an orange soccer ball appears and the foursome begin footballing. Kevin actually tries a few skills to get past the lion and the two lionesses, while the lions simply chew the ball. The music throughout the clip is very lion king-esque until the football scene where it becomes more uptempo and has an almost electronic connotation to it.

Not only did I find this video amazing, I found it to be completely relevant to Randy Malamud’s essay Zoo Spectatorship. Throughout his essay, Malamud has not a single positive thing to say about zoos. What Kevin does here (while it is not applicable to the other 99.99% of the world) is interact with wild lions. He does not simply look at them from a distance in an unnatural habitat, something that Malamud argues is distasteful and disrespectful to the animals. Kevin gets to experience the lions in their most natural state, and his interactions are able to get captured on video. While some may say it is a negative thing that Kevin is teaching these lions to be friendly towards humans while a large portion of humans approaching lions are poachers, I argue against it. I think his interactions with these lions can prove to humans that lions are kind, magical animals. Kevin also uses his videos to raise awareness about the diminishing habitat of the lions due to pollution and the dwindling population size because of increased poachers.

I appreciate this video because, as Malamud states, people should be “more concerned with what the imprisonment of animals says about the people who create, maintain and patronize zoos,” then the effect of zoos on the animals. (222). Kevin, like Malamud, would not appreciate zoos because they do not teach people the real lesson animals have to offer us. Kevin embodies Malamud’s ideas going against spectatorship. Animals are beautiful creatures and should be treated as such. The way Kevin involves himself with the lions goes against everything Malamud argues about zoos. The lions literally look into Kevin’s eyes, unlike in zoos where the “animals deflate the human gaze we conceive as so puissant, by cutting us in return – refusing to dignify or acknowledge our self-important ritual of looking.” (222). Everything Kevin did in this video proves how important it is to be involved with animals, not just spectate them.

Malamud, Randy. Zoo Spectatorship. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Print.

The video I chose comes from youtube and is called, “Pig rescues baby goat”. In the video a drowning goat is pushed onto shore by a pig that swims into the water to help. The cameraman’s narration can be heard at the beginning of the video when he frantically yells, “Goat in the water” and then at the end once the goat has been saved he says, “And there he is, the hero pig”. According to the video description the larger context is that the baby goat fell into a pond at a petting zoo and got its foot stuck underwater, which explains how it became trapped. The video is also filmed in a continuous wide shot, with the goat in the center of the frame and the pig appearing in the bottom left hand corner.

When I first saw this video I was captivated by it because, like the zoo spectators in Randy Malamud’s essay “Zoo Spectatorship”, I fell victim to the voyeuristic mindset and found myself interested in the video because of the element of danger that was involved. The internet is filled with video similar to “Pig rescues baby goat” in which a cute animal in peril is saved and many of them rack up millions of views because they allow the viewer gets a thrill from seeing a cute animal experiencing a dangerous situation. Malamud sums up this one-sided voyeuristic experience with the quote, “The voyeur seeks a spectacle, the revelation of the object of his interest, that something or someone should be open to his inspection and contemplation; but no reciprocal revelation or openness is conceded” (Malamud 230). Malamud’s definition of Voyeurism explains why videos like “Pig rescues baby goat” are so popular: they allow the viewer to see something not often experienced in their day-to-day lives and because of this the viewer gains an incredible amount of satisfaction by living vicariously through the spectacle that they are watching, which in this case is a potentially perilous scenario in which a goat avoids death by being helped by a fellow animal. Much like the zoo spectator the viewer of “Pig rescued by goat” is aware that the act of spectating is invasive, but the viewer continues to do so anyway because they get a thrill from seeing this rare side of the animal kingdom, the only problem is that the experience that they are presented with is entirely fabricate. The video “Pig rescues goat” was created by comedian Nathan Fielder as a social experiment to see if he could create a viral video by using a perilous scenario involving two adorable animals, and the result was a success: the video went viral within days. The comedian used apathy, voyeurism, and cute animals to entice the viewer and was so incredibly successful at doing so that the video received 9 million views. When paired with the Malamud reading it becomes clear that this hoax is no different than the entire experience of zoo spectator ship because both scenarios highlight the sociopathic tendencies that we as voyeurs have developed over time. According to Malamud zoos, “foster sociopathy” by giving people the opportunity to get pleasure from feeding animals and watching them mate and defecate. By this logic videos like “Pig rescues baby goat” also feed our sociopathic appetite because they present us with fabricated perilous situations that we ultimately derive satisfaction from because we get to experience a spectacle that is cute or rare. The hoax video is clearly manipulating the viewer’s empathy and love for cute animals, but in doing so it is able to reveal that we as human beings are incredibly voyeuristic and have a deep-rooted fascination with spectating.

Malamud, Randy. Zoo Spectatorship. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Print.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2818704/How-humans-leaving-rhinos-horny-Noisy-environments-putting-captive-mammals-mating-zoos.html

Another recurring problems I have encountered with my zoo research. Rhinos, who have some of the most sensitive sound throughout all of the Animal Kingdom, are finding it difficult to mate with all of the noise created by people in zoos. This is a pressing issue because the rate at which rhinos are getting poached is at an all-time high and it already is extremely hard to breed them.

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.