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Just Keep Swimming… Just Keep Swimming

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

 

Disney’s 2010 filmOceans, 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.

 

oceanstrailer

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:

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

 

A Cat’s Guide to Training Your Human

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.

Football with Lions

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.

Lion Gets Flipped into the Air

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

 

 

 

Pig Rescues Baby Goat

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.

 

Disney’s Earth

This video is a trailer for Disney’s movie Earth. The video begins by acknowledging the similarities between us and animals, because we both inhabit the same planet. This beginning made me feel like this video was trying to demonstrate the spiritual oneness that Alice Walker mentions in “Am I Blue?” when she states “People…daily forget, all that animals try to tell us. ‘Everything you do to us will happen to you; we are your teachers, as you are ours. We are one lesson’ ” (186).

This trailer shows various wild animals including polar bears, whales, and penguins in their natural habitats. Although there are also adult animals shown, many of the animals shown are babies. Humans are drawn to baby animals because they are cute and Disney is capitalizing on that natural appreciation for young animals. No humans are depicted in the video, although there is a human narrator. The human narrator has an objective voice and seems to be removed from the animals. There is very little text in this video and the text that is present states “Join three families on an amazing journey” which implies an interaction between the audience member and the animals. This contradicts the fact that the narrator seems  to be trying to capture the behaviors of animals without interacting with them. This reflects the oxymoronic nature of the phrase the “activity of spectatorship” (Malamud 220). By participating in spectatorship, the viewer wants to develop a relationship with the animals without disturbing them by interacting with them. However, trying to create this relationship is futile because “one cannot enter into any relationship with [an animal] which is mutual, reciprocal, or symmetrical, insofar and so long as one treats it voyeuristically” (Malamud 230). No real interaction exists between the audience of the movie and these wild animals. Rarely, if ever, are the animals shown looking into the camera which is an example of the way that “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” (Malamud 222).

The music in this trailer consists of two songs. The first song is fast-paced and sounds like the type of music that you would expect to find in an action movie whereas the second song is slower, more melodious, and sounds heartwarming. These two songs appeal to the audience in two different ways. The first song serves the purpose of generating excitement. In this trailer, the animals are always shown doing something that would be exciting to watch. Sharks jump out of the water to feed, elephants are running in herds, and some young animals are taking their first steps.  In the natural world, the animals may be more commonly found sleeping, relaxing, or otherwise remaining in one place. However, if animals were documented as they actually were instead of only including the most exciting parts of their lives then profits for the movie would decrease because no one would have the patience to watch an inactive animal. Most would get bored watching an animal behave the way it normally would. Due to the fact that humans want instant gratification and thus want to see the animals immediately do something compelling, the process of selectively choosing the most thrilling nature footage is what makes nature documentaries so successful. The fast-paced music accentuates the action-packed footage in order to create a distortion of reality. This editing process perpetuates “an imperial relation toward the realm of nature, and its subordination to our whims” (Malamud 228). The heartwarming song encourages viewers to empathize with the animals and to reflect on the spiritual oneness mentioned in the beginning of the trailer.

Although nature documentaries like Disney’s Earth distort reality due to the “neat editing, the musical background, the contextualizing ‘nature’ voice with its cultural biases, and the artificial concentration of action” (Malamud 234), they offer a “greater potential for people to understand how animals really exist” than most other alternatives (Malamud 234). By recognizing the oneness between humans and animals and trying to interfere in the animals’ environments and lives as little as possible, Earth advocates animal welfare and the appreciation of the intrinsic value of animals. I agree with Malamud in his essay “Zoo Spectatorship” when he states that “the benefits [of nature documentaries] outweigh the drawbacks” (234).

 

References:

Kalof, Linda, and Amy J. Fitzgerald. “Zoo Spectatorship.” The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings. Oxford: Berg, 2007. 219-36. Print.

Nudoggy. “Earth-Official Movie Trailer [HD].” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Walker, Alice. “Am I Blue?” Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature. By Tom Regan and Andrew Linzey. Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2010. 182-87. Print.

Continued Problems with Zoos

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.

rhino

 

Black Jaguar White Tiger

I found this organization dedicated to rescuing big cats from circuses and big cat breeders Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 6.15.55 PM(similar to puppy mills) while perusing Instagram (user: blackjaguarwhitetiger) I figured that this organization might draw up some conversation on what Eduardo (the founder) is doing and where certain people stand in regards to his organization.

Here’s the link to his website: http://www.blackjaguarwhitetiger.org/

 

 

Here’s a summarized version of his mission statement:Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 6.11.42 PM
“We are fighting to eradicate the idea that a living being can be reduced to a simple object by possessing it…We are creating awareness about how sentimental, intelligent, and unique each animal is… The only thing that they don´t do is talk a human language…
In September of 2013, the story of an orphaned black Jaguar cub in Mexico made its way to the ears of an individual, Eduardo, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Miguel, the cousin of Eduardo and an expert and long time advocate of animal care, told him that the cub, whose mother had died during birth, was being transported into the hands of a wretched character that planned to drug her in order to take pictures with the public as a source of revenue. Eduardo, always being a firm believer in equality and the proper treatment of all beings, took a leap of faith with existence and intercepted the cub from a loveless life in captivity…Allow us to tell you that it is not for the faint of heart. These are powerful and unpredictable children of nature, not a pet or a toy. Do not underestimate the commitment, work, energy, strength, and resources that are necessary to care for just one of these incredible beings. Today, with the help of devoted friends, Eduardo has rescued tens of felines (And counting) from a life of terror among the circuses, zoos, and breeders. Now that the Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation has been formed, his dream is to end all suffering of the beautiful children of existence that we humans have tried to dictate upon them.
The Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation will soon plead for your economical help in rescuing our planet and raising awareness regarding the care of our environment and that of the innocent creatures that us humans are forcing into extinction. If we don’t do the change, then who will?”

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