Chobani Ad: Dear Alice
This short animated Choboni ad about the future of food production can be useful for exploring different environmental discourses, including pastoral, food, and sustainability. It can be used to generate a discussion about food, agriculture, eco-modernism, and mechanism.
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?
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.
Chipotle Ad: Back to the Start
Willie Nelson, Coldplay, Chipotle and director Johnny Kelly collaborated with the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation to create this short animated film highlighting the issue of sustainable farming. This video is good for generating a discussion about different food systems–sustainable and industrial–and how these systems are represented. This is also excellent for exploring the spectrum of environmental ideologies (anthropocentric versus ecocentric). Given that this is produced by a fast food chain, could this be considered an example of greenwashing?