Walt Disney Co. gets into nature 8

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1. 

   litesong Posted 8:54 am
   22 Apr 2008

   Depth & LightStrangely, it is often hard to gain great depths in visual & aural stories. But let the many edged stories of nature be told in this film series. As optics capture the surface reflections of flora & fauna, let sound shed light below the surface of  untold stories that have the complexity of life.

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2. 

   paulforpeace Posted 12:58 pm
   22 Apr 2008

   about timefinally, but still, they should make environmentally minded movies instead of documentaries, that way we could get it into evryones brains

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3. 

   Tasermons Partner Posted 3:07 pm
   22 Apr 2008

   WALL-Efinally, but still, they should make environmentally minded movies instead of documentaries, that way we could get it into evryones brains
   Wait till WALL-E comes out in a few months.
   
   

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4. 

   greenfire8 Posted 4:13 pm
   22 Apr 2008

   disneyficationoh boy...what species are they going to anthropomorphize next? be vigilant all you watchdogs of mechanized recreation...coming soon...Walt Yellowstone World....Grand Disney Canyon World...

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5. 

   caniscandida Posted 8:14 pm
   22 Apr 2008

   Anthropomorphizationhas its place.  In documentaries, so long as the experiences of the animals that are shown are authentic, and the animals' reactions or decisions are not interpreted in too human a way, it is a common strategy to get children especially engaged in wildlife conservation and animal welfare.  And not only children.
   "March of the Penguins" is visually stellar, and in that regard there is nothing wrong with it.  And it is inevitable, perhaps, that we will identify with penguins, or with any animals, when we concentrate on certain experiences common to all animals, such as procuring food, mating and reproducing, and, in many species, caring for the young.  But the voice-over soundtrack was simplistic and a waste of time; it was that, and not the photography, that made the movie look a bit like propaganda for right-wing family values.  As I wrote before, the same movie should be re-released, with a more scientifically sophisticated voice-over.
   Possibly there is some of that inevitable identification with animals in the acclaimed "Beaver Valley."  I have not seen it; and unfortunately it seems not to be available through Netflix, which is how we get our movies now.
   I also have never seen the popular reality series "Meerkat Manor," shown on the Animal Planet channel.  From what I understand about it, it sounds like the animals are presented in a very anthropomorphized way; the Wikipedia article says that when one of the meerkats was dangerously injured, the producers received criticism from viewers for not intervening.  I cannot judge.  The highly socialized lives of meerkats may indeed look like what is shown.
   It would seem likely that in the projected Disney movie about chimpanzees, some anthropomorphization will be hard to avoid.  In fact, though, recent documentaries about chimpanzees emphasizing the aggressive and violent side to their nature have been quite alienating, imho.

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6. 

   lumpy Posted 3:08 am
   23 Apr 2008

   right wing penguins?
   
   the commentary on march of the penguins was right wing? it was more no wing because penguins can't fly.
   seriously, that's pretty out there. so i weirdly respect that i guess. hey, wait, come to think of it, i do remember seeing some hovering black u.n. choppers in a few scenes . . .
   disney doing nature docs. if they did it with classic disney characters doing the narrations, i.e., donald duck doing a show about ducks, i see a ratings champ.

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7. 

   Pangolin Posted 3:31 am
   23 Apr 2008

   MythosCan be as important as fact as you so frequently remind us CC. If believing the penguins are expressing "good Christian parenting" is what gets people thinking about the environment that's fine with me.
   We can correct the science later. We need their heartstrings NOW.
   If we give an anthromophized name to every endangered charismatic megafauna and assign 11 year old girls to monitoring their lemur or whatever on the web those creatures have a fighting chance. As species lost in the forest preserves overrun by civil wars they are dying off.
   More "Meerkat Manor" and more shows like it. It beats the snot out of "Family Guy" reruns.

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8. 

   caniscandida Posted 5:21 am
   23 Apr 2008

   Bambi himselfwas environmentally pernicious.  The extreme anthropomorphization of the animal characters is not a good way to teach children about forest ecosystems.  Whatever we may think about hunting and hunters, that story is not helpful, when it reinforces the very human value that death is always an occasion of sadness, and should be avoided at all costs.
   Notice how unrealistic it is, that the owl is a good and trusted friend of all the little animals on the forest floor!  Yes indeed; any real owl would those little baby mammals very very much ...
   Also unrealistic: that Bambi, born in the Spring, is still a small fawn the following Winter; that when the animals reach sexual maturity, it is the girls who are the forward ones, and the boys are backward and shy; that the Buck, Bambi's father, should recognize his son, and seek to save him from the fire.
   "The Lion King" is pretty hard to take too, in spite of excellent drawing of many kinds of animals.
   Much more satisfactory, so far as Mythos goes, is "The Jungle Book," which does not pretend to be a real lesson about animals (though there are some good observations about wolves at least), and which manages to get us to think about the philosophical question, How are human beings like animals, and how are we different?
   On "March of the Penguins" as religious-right propaganda: I did not make that up; and I would not have interpreted the documentary that way.  But it is a fact that a number of churches did recommend that movie for family viewing.

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