Pat Brereton - Environmental Ethics and Film

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND FILM

Environmental ethics presents and defends a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral relation between human beings and their natural environment and assumes that human behaviour toward the natural world can be and is governed by moral norms. In contemporary society, film has provided a powerful instrument for the moulding of such ethical attitudes.

Through a close examination of the medium, Environmental Ethics and Film explores how historical ethical values can be re-imagined and re-constituted for more contemporary audiences. Building on an extensive back-catalogue of eco-film analysis, the author focuses on a diverse selection of contemporary films which target audiences ethical sensibilities in very different ways. Each chapter focuses on at least three close readings of films and documentaries, examining a wide range of environmental issues as they are illustrated across contemporary Hollywood films.

This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of environmental communication, film studies, media and cultural studies, environmental philosophy and ethics.

Pat Brereton is Head of the School of Communications at Dublin City University, Ireland.

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Environmental Ethics and Film

Pat Brereton

There is a saying that without vision, there the people perish. In Environmental Ethics and Film Pat Brereton beautifully illustrates and makes the case for the capacity of films to help us tell new stories and provide visions of the human condition in an age of complex and global ecological challenges and opportunities. Brereton sees film as neither a substitute for political activism nor mere escapism. Rather, it creates the conditions for transformation, new understandings and the fusing of normative, affective and above all imaginative interpretations of the present or alternative visions of our planetary future. In films capacity to appeal to our imaginations about human relations, we have different and more accessible resources for new narratives and ethical responses than those given by scientific readings of those relations. This book is an authoritative and accessibly written account of how film can do much more than simply paint dystopian, nostalgic or utopian accounts of our planetary condition. It can help in remaking a better, more ecologically sustainable world.

John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy, Queens University Belfast, UK

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND FILM

Pat Brereton

First published 2016

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Pat Brereton

The right of Pat Brereton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brereton, Pat.

Environmental ethics and film / Pat Brereton.

pages cm

1. Environmental protection and motion pictures. 2. Environmentalism in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Environmental ethics. I. Title.

PN1995.9.E78B84 2015

791.436553--dc23

2015009707

ISBN: 978-0-415-74727-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-74728-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-79715-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by HWA Text and Data Management, London

CONTENTS

This book received financial support from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Book Publication Scheme at Dublin City University.

Permission has been sought and gratefully received for re-framing sections from previous publications around ecology and film including:

Cinema, Ecology and the Environment, Chapter 22 in Anders Hansen and Robert Cox (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communications, Routledge, 2015.

Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema, Intellect Press, 2005.

An ecological approach to the cinema of Peter Weir, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 28(2): 120134.

Smart Cinema: DVD Add-ons and New Audience Pleasures, Palgrave, 2012.

Irish eco-Cinema and Audiences (with Pat Hong), Interactions: Studies in Culture and Communication 4(2): 171199, 2014.

Screening Green Business: An Ecological Reading of the Greatest Business Movies (with Pierre McDonagh), Journal of Macromarketing, 30(2): 133146, 2009.

Eco-cinema, Sustainability and Africa: A Reading of Out of Africa, The Constant Gardener and District 9, Journal of African Cinemas 5(2): 219235, 2013.

Appreciating the Views: Filming Nature: Into the Wild, Grizzly Man and Into the West in Stephen Rust, Salma Monani and Sean Cubitt (eds), Ecocinema Theory and Practice, Routledge, 2013.

Farming in Irish Film: An Ecological Reading in Sid Dobrin and Sean Morey (eds), Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature, SUNY Press, 2009.

I would also like to acknowledge numerous scholars and students who have read various drafts of these chapters and record my thanks for various very helpful suggestions and insights. These include: Pietari Kp, Alexa Weik von Mossner, Michael Doorley, Bert Gordijn, Donal OMathuna, Alan Kearns, Pierre McDonagh, Dave Robbins, Pat Hong, Padraig Murphy, Trish Morgan, Neil OBoyle, Brenda McNally, Eileen Culloty, Fiachara OBroichain, John OSullivan, together with DCU undergraduate and postgraduate students, especially the masters in ethics students on which some of these ideas were road-tested.

Literature review

Overview

Why are some people in Western society actively concerned with protecting nature and natural things, while others are not, and what motivates people in the first place to become involved in environmental protection? These are very complex and loaded questions that preoccupy environmental communication scholars and are difficult to answer. But by focusing on contemporary fictional film with their often engaging environmental themes and storylines, we can at least begin to explore some of the debates embedded within environmental protection and its related ethics. I will explore how mass audience films and their use of a creative imaginary, display a range of cautionary allegorical tales that help to promote greater awareness and debate concerning the central importance of environmental ethics for the very survival of our planet.