Animal Activism On and Off Screen examines the relationship between animal advocacy and the film and television industries. Leading scholars, activists, and film industry professionals critically analyse the ways in which animal activism has been represented inside and outside film and television programs in relation to the politics of celebrity, vegan, and animal activism.
Case studies include UK, US, and German television crime fiction, feature-length advocacy documentaries such as Blackfish (2013), The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013), The Animal People (2019) and Meat the Future (2020); fiction films such as Okja (2017) and Cloud Atlas (2012); as well as celebrity chefs, French activism and celebrity activists Pamela Anderson, Joaquin Phoenix and James Cromwell.
By exploring three key aspects of the current context for animal rights: representations of activism on screen; activist texts and their reception; and celebrity vegans and animal advocates, Animal Activism On and Off Screen evaluates the efficacy of advocacy narratives in film and on television, and offers important insights intended to inform animal advocacy strategies and campaigns.
Recenzijos
A great read for those interested in activism, how the media spreads messages, and how the cultural landscape around us is formed. Anthony Morris, Books+Publishing
Acknowledgements
Introduction by Claire Parkinson and Lara Herring
Animal rights activism is (not) a crime: Portraying violence and the animal
rights agenda in German, American and British TV crime series (c. 19902010)
by Mieke Roscher
Inspiring animal liberation: The representation of animal activists in US
animal advocacy documentaries (20002019) by Nśria Almiron, Laura Fernįndez
and Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo
The Animal People: Reconstituting identity in the animal liberation movement
by Emily Plec
Anti-capitalism, animal rights and advocacy in Okja by Claire Parkinson
(More than) food, farms and freedom: Turning exclusions in pro-vegan
documentaries into productive interventions for animal advocacy by Paula
Arcari
Please dont look away: The ghostly intersections between seeing and
feeling in documentary film by Lorena Elke Dobbie
From carnism to cannibalism: Intersectional speciesism in the fiction film
Cloud Atlas by Lara Herring
Animal activism formula for success: Lessons for capitalising on the
Blackfish effect by Debra Merskin and Carrie Freeman
Meat the Future: An interview with Liz Marshall Interviewed by Claire
Parkinson
From Brigitte Bardot to Pamela Anderson: Celebrity activists in France and
the United States by Elizabeth Cherry
Food fights: The limits of celebrity chef activism by Brett Mills
Celebrity activism: PETA, Pamela, Porn by Toby Miller
About a speech: The medias reaction to a celebrity advocacy intervention by
Loredana Loy
Thatll do, Pig!: Critical potentials in celebrity-activist media ecologies
by Eva Haifa Giraud
Professor Claire Parkinson is Professor of Culture, Communication and Screen Studies, Associate Head of English and Creative Arts, and co-director of the Centre for Human Animal Studies (CfHAS) at Edge Hill University. Dr Lara Herring is a lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford, UK.
