June 7, 2023: Environmental Activisms: Animated Activism

[Thissummer, my older son is extending hisprior efforts to help combat climate change by interning with the amazing ClimateJust Cities project. That project is part of the long legacy of Americanenvironmental activism, so this week I’ll highlight a handful of suchactivisms. Leading up to a special weekend post on Climate Just Cities!]

Threeexamples of the longstanding link between animation and the environment.

1)     Captain Planet and the Planeteers/The New Adventures of Captain Planet(1990-96): As a viewer and fan of the show since its first episodes, I might bebiased, but it seems to me that Ted Turner and Barbara Pyle’s environmentaledutainment program (or programs, since the show changed its name whenHanna-Barbera took over principal production in 1993) Captain Planet was one of the most radical and influentialchildren’s shows of all time. The show’s consistent environmental activistthemes and stories should be evidence enough for that claim; but if not, Iwould point to the 1992episode “A Formula for Hate,” in which the villain sought to spread liesand paranoia about AIDS and thus to turn a town against an HIV-infected youngman (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris). The pre-BostonMarch for Science talk I recorded through my role as the Scholar Strategy Network’s BostonChapter Co-Leader focused on science and public activism, and I can’timagine a clearer embodiment of that link than this Captain Planet episode.

2)     FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992): 1992 was a banner year forenvironmental animation, as it also saw the release of FernGully, a joint Australian and American animated film (based on DianaYoung’s children’s novel of the same name) about the growing threatsto the world’s rainforests. Among its many achievements, FernGully succeeded in bringing Cheech and Chong back together for thefirst time in six years; it also perhaps influenced the casting of John Woo’s Broken Arrow (1996),which likewise featured a pairing of Samantha Mathis and Christian Slater.They, like all of the film’s voice actors (including Robin Williams in his first animatedfilm as Batty) worked for scale, as all were committed to the film’senvironmental and conservationist messages. Indeed, I’d argue that Captain Planet and FernGully together reflect the leading role pop culture played inadvancing those issues in the early 1990s—a trend worth remembering wheneverwe’re tempted to dismiss pop culture’s social or communal roles.

3)     Princess Mononoke (1997):Legendary animationdirector Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 historical fantasy anime filmillustrates that those cultural contributions to environmental activism weretaking place around the globe. Like FernGully,Mononoke uses the genre of fantasy totell its story of supernatural and human heroes working together to fight foran embattled natural world against encroaching forces. Often the genre of animehas been associated with futuristic and urban settings; but Miyazaki’s film,among others in the era, redirected the genre’s tropes andthemes to the historical and natural worlds. Like Captain Planet and FernGullybefore it, Mononoke was an internationalhit (as well as a boxoffice smash in Japan), with its English-language version becomingone of the mostpopular Hollywood adaptations of an anime or Japanese film of all time. Inmy experience, Earth Day really took off as a collective phenomenon in the1990s—and if so, we might well have these pioneering 1990s animations to thank.

Next environmentalactivism tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? American environmental voices or efforts you’d highlight?