Representing Animals

Tag: Malamud

Why a 1500-Pound Murder Machine Does Not Belong in a Petting Zoo

November 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The video I chose depicts a group of children at Yellowstone National Park approaching far too close to a wild bison bull with the encouragement of an adult filming the events (hereafter referred to as “Moron”), and then running for their lives when the bison – entirely predictably – charges them.  This human-animal interaction illustrates the dangers of substituting voyeuristic thrill for respect for an animal.

The very first thing we hear in the video is Moron assuring the children that “he’s friendly” (B Loy).  Rather than shepherding the children away from the beast that has greater strength and weight than all of them combined, Moron just stands back and films the children as they approach the bison while repeatedly exclaiming “oh my gosh” (B Loy).

As the children approach, the bison turns to face them and begins shaking its head and hind quarters about while snorting loudly: classic warning signs that it is preparing to charge.  Moron even notices these “gestures,” (B Loy), although he doesn’t take any action to mitigate the considerable danger facing the children; whether this is because he didn’t realize what the gestures meant or because he was simply too empty-headed to act is unclear but given what we’ve seen of him so far, either is possible.  The bison then moves to block the path it saw the children taking; because it stands its ground as the humans approach and even moves to block their path, this is clearly territorial behavior and not self-preservation instincts.

Which is bad.

As the children continue advancing, the bison’s warning gestures become more pronounced and it lowers its head – this bull is going to charge whatever draws its attention next.  The two children who had managed to get past the bison are saved from almost certain death by a man who quickly hops onto the wooden footpath on the other side of the bison, the sudden motion causing it to charge.  The main group of tourists flees away from the bison’s territory, but one child breaks from the group and runs parallel to the border; the animal singles this child out and pursues him, quickly closing the distance until the child turns and sprints away from the bison’s territory with less than a yard between him and the animal, at which point the bison, satisfied that it has made its point, abandons the chase (B Loy).

It is by sheer luck that nobody was killed in this incident; it’s hardly uncommon to hear about tourists gored or trampled by bison, almost universally killing the tourist.  The worst part about this kind of thing is that it’s a 100% completely avoidable situation; even a modicum of common sense would have defused the situation before it escalated to the point that it did.  It was by sheer luck that nobody was killed, and if it were to happen again fatalities would be almost guaranteed.  It’s truly infuriating that nobody had that little bit of common sense not to approach Nature’s Rage-Filled Battering Ram.

Well, we’re calling the camera guy Moron for a reason.

Since I grew up on a farm that counted several heads of bison among its livestock (the bison were there before we were), I’m more familiar with the temperament and physical capabilities of bison than your average person idiot dad on vacation.  This is why I find it simply infuriating seeing things like this charge happen.  Not only does this sort of behavior jeopardize the safety of the tourists but it also epitomizes the marginalization of both the animal itself as it is reduced to a check box on the family’s vacation summary as well as its “wild-ness” as the people in the video treat it like it is a tourist attraction there solely for their amusement.

Bison are not animals to be trifled with; they can weigh to 2,000 pounds (read: a lot bigger than a person), run at up to 30 miles per hour (read: a lot faster than a person), jump up to six feet vertically (read: a lot higher than a person), and their heads sport two long, sharp horns sprouting from a bone plate in the skull that they can use to smash through a reinforced fence (read: a bison will ruin your day).  Furthermore, bison are typically ill-tempered and remarkably unintelligent animals with highly aggressive and territorial dispositions, and will not hesitate to use the aforementioned physical abilities to run down and kill anything that threatens it or intrudes on their turf.  As seen in the video, that includes tourists small children with questionable adult supervision.  Long story short, despite being herbivores a bison can and will mess you up if you don’t treat it with caution and respect.

The group’s close approach to the bison also encroaches on its “wild-ness” as an animal and reduces it to a sideshow stop on Yuppie Dad’s Great Yellowstone Vacation Plan (patent pending).  The father displays several behaviors that Malamud condemns, such as engaging in the voyeuristic thrill of watching the bison from a, at least in theory, superior vantage point of greater power (Malamud 221).  While he (thankfully) doesn’t take it as far as the physical self-stimulation Nimier witnessed (qtd. in Malamud 220), Moron does take part in the all-too-common metaphorically masturbatory exercise of wrapping oneself in warm, fuzzy feelings of superiority while sipping on a hot mug of smugness and looking at the “inferior” animals of the wild.  In the eyes of the tourists in the video, the bison was not a living, breathing creature but a tourism draw like Old Faithful (note: at no point has a geyser ever tried to violently kill somebody).

By reducing the bison to nothing more than a spectacle to provide fleeting amusement on vacation, the animal that was once revered as a sacred creature by the Plains Indians is marginalized until it is nothing more than a silhouette on the souvenir T-shirt your 15-year old son wears to let all his friends know about his awesome summer vacation.  The bison has been marginalized to something that is only good to look at for a few minutes by the side of a road; the animal that once owned the Great Plains has been reduced to Yellowstone National Park’s Bison™, merely a mascot for a tract of land in Wyoming and Montana – or for a certain clearly inferior liberal arts college that shall remain nameless (looking at you, Chris).  In the popular opinion, bison are simply objects for humans to look at in mild-to-moderate wonder; few people particularly care if the bison is looking back.  Berger identified this imbalance in Why Look at Animals?: “animals are always the observed.  The fact that they can observe us has lost all significance” (Berger 16).  Humans are too wrapped up in looking at the bison from the windows of their Winnebagos to bother wondering if the bison is looking back, and what it might think of them.

By forgetting that bison are more than source material for screen-printed images on T-shirts, they marginalize the animal until they also forget the sheer strength and lethality it carries.  This marginalization is the result of the reduction of the bison to a mascot or a tourist attraction, and stems from Man’s tendency to look down on animals who do not resemble himself.  However, the human perception of the bison, no matter how erroneous, cannot change simple facts such as this:

Those kids are damn lucky.

 

Works Cited:

B Loy.  “Angry bison charges small child at Yellowstone in scary video.”  Online video clip.           YouTube.  YouTube, 5 Sep. 2012.  Web.  9 Nov. 2014.

Berger, John.  Why Look at Animals?.  New York: Vintage International.  1977.  Print.

Malamud, Randy.  “Zoo Spectatorship.”  The Animals Reader.  Ed. Linda Kalof and Amy                Fitzgerald.  New York: Oxford Press.  Print.

Petting Tiger Sharks

November 8, 2014 / / 5 Comments

“Petting a Tiger Shark” is one of many promotional videos for the GoPro camera. The video itself is only about 1:45 seconds long, but it contains many examples of what Malamud discusses in Zoo Spectatorship. This ad depicts a professional team of divers descending into the ocean with a carton of fish and an intention to film, feed, and pet a Tiger Shark. The video starts with the focus on the divers jumping off the boat and making their way down to the ocean floor, while creepy and suspenseful, albeit dream-like, music plays off in the background. The song is San Fermin’s “Sonsick”. The music picks up when we see the first shark swimming alone on the floor, circling near the diver. The climax of the song occurs next – when the diver offers a piece of fish up to the shark, and it takes it while continuing to swim past the diver. Then, with the piece of fish still in the shark’s mouth, we see a hand come up into the frame and stroke the underbelly of the shark. The shark seems to pay little attention – continuing on with his way, but he does circle back for more food. The diver again reaches out to touch the shark, who this time immediately jerks away. Another piece of food is offered in the next shot, and then the diver continually rubs the shark’s face. Surprisingly, what happens next looks like the shark is not only complying, but at ease with the contact. This is a conflicting scene for me – it seems as though it was edited to slow down the frame, to make it seem as though the diver was petting the shark for longer than he actually was. Also, the diver has both hands holding the shark’s head, and the shark twists their body slowly upon contact and lies on the seafloor. It’s hard to tell whether or not this reaction is one of compliance, comfort, or an attempt to wiggle away from the hands of the diver. The video ends with a tight shot on the shark’s face, focusing on its’ eye, while the lyrics in the song coo: “don’t be scared” – a conscious editing decision intended to pair the suspense of the song with the mystery and intimidating attitude of the shark.

Many concepts Malamud explores in Zoo Spectatorship are present in this short video clip. The first concept is feeding animals – one that the diver in this video does multiple times. Malamud quotes Mullan and Marvin in his argument, stating: “rather than the animals needing to be fed, it is humans wanting to feed them…the humans demand to be noticed by the animals”(225). This scenario is very similar – despite the fact that the human is in the shark’s natural habitat; the shark is not in a zoo. However, this diver still wants to be noticed by the shark by feeding it, he wants to be able to pet it, touch it, connect with it…even though the shark simply grabs the fish and continues swimming, paying little attention to the diver himself. Another quote from Malamud elaborates on the dynamic between humans feeding animals, saying that “the act is generous and the pleasure is innocent, although both derive from a base of superiority and power…making another being eat out of your hand – that yields a special thrill…if it is large enough to crush us”(225). We see this same dynamic in this video clip – although the act is innocent, the diver is still in control of the situation. The shark is still wild, but a human is still imposing their presence in the animal’s natural environment, attempting to understand, be there for, and be recognized by the animal. When the diver touches the shark, attempting to pet it similarly to the way one would pet a domesticated dog, the act is definitely made out of curiosity, wonder, and possibly appreciation. However, the shark can’t but “disappoint”, as Berger discusses, because the shark’s gaze is fleeting. The shark is simply there for the food, not because the animal wants to indulge in a friendship. We see the shark jerk away from the human’s touch to his face, but the human is persistent in continuing to pet and touch the shark.

Despite these arguments against the diver, Malamud would most likely prefer this scenario over one where the shark is trapped inside a tank. The diver is only a visitor, and a generous one at that. Despite the diver indulging in a dominant behavior, possibly a “voyeuristic” behavior as Malamud discusses, the human is not caging the shark or trapping it – a positive alternative to restricting the shark to a life inside a tank.

 

 

Works Cited:

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

Nimmo, Cameron. “GoPro: Petting A Tiger Shark.” YouTube. YouTube, 12 Aug. 2014.

Web. 06 Nov. 2014.

Lion Gets Flipped into the Air

November 5, 2014 / / 3 Comments

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

 

 

 

Disney’s Earth

November 4, 2014 / / 3 Comments

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.

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