Screening the Nonhuman draws connections between how animals represented on screen translate into reality. In doing so, the book demonstrates that consuming media is not a neutral act but rather a political one. The images humans consume have real world consequences for how animals are treated as actors, as pets, and in nature. The contributors propose that altering the representations of animals can change the way humans relate to non/humans. Our hope is for humans to generate more ethical relationships with non/humans, ultimately mediating reality both in terms of fiction and non-fiction. To achieve this end, film, television, advertisements, and social media are analyzed through an intersectional lens. But the book doesn't stop here. Each author creates counter-representational strategies that promise to unweave the assumptions that have led to the mistreatment of humans and non/humans alike.
Introduction: Critical Media Studies and Critical Animal Studies at the Crossroads, Amber George and J.L. Schatz Part I Chapter One: The Brown Wizard's Unexpected Politics: Speciesist Fiction and the Ethics of The Hobbit, J.L. Schatz Chapter Two: The Passing Faerie and the Transforming Raven: Animalized Compulsory Re-covery, Endurance, and Dis/ability in Maleficent, Jennifer Polish Chapter Three: Jabbering Jaws: Reimagining Representations of Sharks Post-Jaws, Matthew Lerberg Chapter Four: Horseplay: Beastly Cinematic Performances in Steven Spielberg's War Horse, Stella Hockenhull Chapter Five: Would Bugs Bunny Have Diabetes?: The Realistic Consequences of Cartoons for Non/Human Animals, Amber E. George Part II Chapter Six: I Am Legend (2007), U.S. Imperialism, and the Liminal Animality of "The Last Man, Carter Soles Chapter Seven: Ape Anxiety: Intelligence, Human Supremacy, and Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Sean Parson Chapter Eight: The Vicious Cycle of Disnification and Audience Demands: Representations of the Non/Human in Martin Rosen's Watership Down (1978) and The Plague Dogs (1982), Anja Hoeing & Harald Husemann Chapter Nine: The "Nature-Run-Amok" Cinema of the 1970s: Representation of Non/human Animals in Frogs and Orca, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Cesar Alfonso Marino Part III Chapter Ten: Cyberbeasts: Substitution and Trivialization of the Non/Human Animal in Home Movies, Memes, and Video Games, Joseph Anderton Chapter Eleven: Pet-Animals in the Concrete Jungle: Tales of Abandonment, Failures, and Sentimentality in San Hua and Twelve Nights, Fiona Yuk-wa Law Chapter Twelve: In Defense of Non/Humans: Mystification and Oppression in the Sports Mascoting Process, Guilherme Nothen and Michael Atkinson Chapter Thirteen: On Empathy, Anthropocentrism, and Rhetorical Tropes: An Analysis of Online "Save the Bees!" Campaign Images, Christina Victoria Cedillo
