Date of Completion

Spring 5-1-2024

Thesis Advisor(s)

Gregory Semenza, Erika Williams

Honors Major

English

Disciplines

Other English Language and Literature | Other Film and Media Studies

Abstract

Environmentalism has strengthened as a discipline during the climate era, a period defined by the ongoing effects of climate change, and it is time for a fully environmental activist cinema to emerge. This type of filmmaking must be committed to generating images of our future along a utopian or apocalyptic continuum. This approach allows filmmakers to maintain the gravity of the climate crisis while generating inspiring, alternative futures that are not tied to the current global culture of capitalist exploitation of natural resources and marginalized peoples. Environmentalist filmmakers must then articulate climate change as a cultural issue—one that is produced by a certain outlook held by the Global North that justifies their twin domination of peoples and landscapes. By examining an existing subset of films across a variety of film genres that handle environmental themes, I analyze how a politically activist rhetoric can emerge in each of these genres and contribute itself toward an overall picture of environmentalism’s representation in narrative filmmaking. While environmentalist filmmakers have largely been relegated to the real, it is my assertion that we need fiction films that can speak to their audience’s imaginations in ever new, ever more powerful ways. Films are a medium that is uniquely capable of directly presenting images to the eye and mind of their audience; it is time they brought images forward that compelled environmental activism toward a tangible, new future in their audiences.

Download

Share

COinS