That's all folks? : ecocritical readings of American animated features / Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murray, Robin L.

Contributor:

Heumann, Joseph K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmentalism in motion pictures.

Animated films.

Physical Description:

ix, 283 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2011]

Summary:

"Although some credit the environmental movement of the 1970s, with its profound impact on children's television programs and movies, for paving the way for later eco-films, the history of environmental expression in animated film reaches much further back in American history, as That's All Folks? makes clear. Countering the view that the contemporary environmental movement--and the cartoons it influenced--came to life in the 1960s, Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann reveal how environmentalism was already a growing concern in animated films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. From Felix the Cat cartoons to Disney's beloved Bambi to Pixar's Wall-E and James Cameron's Avatar, this volume shows how animated features with environmental themes are moneymakers on multiple levels--particularly as broad-based family entertainment and conveyors of consumer products. Only Ralph Bakshi's X-rated Fritz the Cat and R-rated Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, with their violent, dystopic representation of urban environments, avoid this total immersion in an anti-environmental consumer market. Showing us enviro-toons in their cultural and historical contexts, this book offers fresh insights into the changing perceptions of the relationship between humans and the environment and a new understanding of environmental and animated cinema"--Provided by publisher.

"Examines animated films in the cultural and historical context of environmental movements"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Bambi and Mr. Bug Goes to Town: Nature with or without Us 29

2 Animal Liberation in the 1940s and 1950s: What Disney Does for the Animal Rights Movement 49

3 The UPA and the Environment: A Modernist Look at Urban Nature 79

4 Animation and Live Action: A Demonstration of Interdependence? 91

5 Rankin/Bass Studios, Nature, and the Supernatural: Where Technology Serves and Destroys 115

6 Disney in the 1960s and 1970s: Blurring Boundaries between Human and Nonhuman Nature 135

7 Dinosaurs Return: Evolution Outplays Disney's Binaries 161

8 DreamWorks and Human and Nonhuman Ecology: Escape or Interdependence in Over the Hedge and Bee Movie 183

9 Pixar and the Case of Wall-E: Moving between Environmental Adaptation and Sentimental Nostalgia 201

10 The Simpsons Movie, Happy Feet, and Avatar: The Continuing Influence of Human, Organismic, Economic, and Chaotic Approaches to Ecology 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780803235120

0803235127

OCLC:

712115633