Climate Porn and the Apocalypse:
Tracing Ecological Narratives in Popular Environmental Documentaries

Abstract:

This paper advocates a rationale by which a Hollywood blockbuster can manage a more significant contribution to environmental discourses than an artistic, nonverbal, visually stunning nature film. Two films are compared as representatives of the two dominant environmental narratives in North America. An Inconvenient Truth is symptomatic of Conservationist ideals of sustainability through a utilitarian approach, while Baraka supports Preservationist ideals of a spiritual nature that tends towards harmony and balance when relieved of human interference.

Visual and editorial decisions profoundly support the narratives of each film, and though they both use similar visual tropes and realist devices, their ecological values and meanings are remarkably dissimilar. Consequently, much of this paper is devoted to an examination of the visual and editorial techniques used to create each narrative.

Though the central intent of popular environmental cinema is to create ecological change via the solutions it advocates,it also has an impact on social discourses not immediately apparent in “the natural,” including race, history, economic systems, and gender. For environmental activists, creators of images, and for public discourse, it is important to be clear about how images and their organization are used to create specific relationships between people and the physical environment.

2007