Video

Winged Migration: Extended Preview

This clip is useful for exploring the wilderness environmental discourse. It can also be used to discuss how “nature” stories are constructed.

Avatar: Trailer

Avatar demonstrates how symbolic resources circulate in the global media ecosystem in complex and contradictory ways. On the surface, Avatar is a typical product of the culture industry. Its production, marketing, product tie-ins, and normal hype that accompanies blockbuster films point to it being just another Hollywood spectacle appropriating social anxieties for profit. In particular, the film was criticized as a simplistic New Age fantasy that demeans and stereotypes indigenous cultures. Yet audiences reacted profoundly to the movie. The film visualizes a war of opposing knowledge systems: one based on the commodification of natural resources versus a sophisticated ecoculture struggling against colonial forces of extraction and destruction.

Into the Wild: Trailer

Into the Wild depicts the real-life story of Chris McCandless, who goes on a journey to come into contact with the “wild” in Alaska. This is a strong example of the wilderness environmental discourse, which has a long tradition in Western visual and literary culture. Students can discuss how wilderness is represented as different than, or other than, civilization. Does this film enable people to feel more connected to nature, or disconnected?

Chipotle Ad: Can a Burrito Change the World?

Chipotle asks, Can a burrito change the world? What kind of environmental discourses are used to answer this? How does it describe farming practices? How does Chipotle back its claims? Can Chipotle legitimately claim they are changing the food industry? Discuss the meaning of the phrase at the very end: How we grow our food is how we grow our future.

Sun-Maid Raisin Girl goes to Hollywood

This advertisement for Sun-Maid Raisins is a strong example of the pastoral environmental discourse. It represents an idyllic version of farming that has a long tradition in Western visual culture. Discuss with students about whether or not this ad accurately represents the reality of industrial farming. They can research how raisins are produced and the conditions for laborers who pick grapes. They can also explore what kinds of beliefs about the environment are communicated in the ad. Finally, what do they think about the ad’s focus on celebrity?

The Day After Tomorrow: Trailer

The Day After Tomorrow is considered a quintessential eco-apocalypse film. It’s an example of clif-fi (climate fiction), which depicts a worse case scenario for climate tipping points. It’s a good source to discuss how to communicate about the dangers of global heating. Eco-apocalypse is one of the most common environmental discourses used by environmentalists. The question for students is, how effective is this? Does watching it change people’s understanding of the climate?

Food, Inc.

The opening four minute title sequence features the voice of food journalist, Michael Pollan, discussing how food packaging depicts (and misleads) about American agriculture. This is an excellent example of how environmental discourses are communicated in everyday life and models for students how to analyze them.

Indigenous Cosmology: The Honorable Harvest

This short video is part of a series called “Seeding the Field: 30 Years of Transformative Solutions,” which celebrates some of the best moments of the Bioneers conference through the last 30 years. “Indigenous peoples worldwide honor plants, not only as our sustainers, but as our oldest teachers who share teachings of generosity, creativity, sustainability and joy. By their living examples, plants spur our imaginations of how we might live. By braiding indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with modern tools of botanical science, Robin Kimmerer, professor of Environmental Science and Forestry, of Potawatomi ancestry.”

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