Adventurous Nature: Environmental Heroes and Villains on Screen

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

The growth of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities more broadly has influenced the field of environmental history, with historians now finding it important to bring more scholarly attention to popular media’s portrayal of the environment. As Finis Dunaway shows in Seeing Green, visual images, including those in TV and movies, have powerfully shaped debates about environmental issues over the past fifty years. This panel will explore the ways that extraction, pollution, and conservation have appeared in movies and TV, focusing on the period between the 1980s and the 2010s. Panelists will center their papers on the action/adventure genre, looking closely at the roles of heroes and villains in children’s cartoons, adventure movies, and the Reality TV subgenre known as “Tough Guy TV.” Discussion will center on the kinds of environmental values communicated by this popular culture as well as speculate on what kinds of adventures we now need in the era of the Anthropocene.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Individual Presentations

• Captain Planet, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Toxic Crusaders: Environmental Toxicity and Children's Animated Programming - Sherri Sheu, Science History Institute

• Gold in the Jungle: White Heroes and Mining Adventures, from 19th Century Fiction to 21st Century Reality TV - Brian Leech, Augustana College

• Rainforest Panacea: Natural Cures and Indigenous Knowledge in Film from Medicine Man to Embrace of the Serpent - Kelly Enright, Flagler College

Chair

• Chris Balaschak, Flagler College

Discussant

• Sarah Stanford-McIntyre, University of Colorado Boulder