(A toxic Text) Fierce Creatures

Fierce Creatures is the “not-sequel” to A Fish Ccalled Wanda. It was directed by Fred Schepisi and Robert Young and its cast starred Jamie Lee Curtis, John Cleese and Kevin Kline. The movie is set in an English zoo that has been taken over by Octopus, an American company. The environmentally conscious messages are of course all over the movie, as it is of course about the poor British David against the evil American Goliath (Kevin Kline in a dial role). The Americans (of course) only want to make money which is why Rollo Lee (Cleese) and the other workers (amongst other a brilliant Michael Palin) have to gang up to save the zoo (a plot involving a gun, a lemur and flour).

The scene that environmentally struck me the most though was when Vince McCain brings in an animatronic Panda. At first the workers don’t realize it’s an animatronic reacting all the more betrayed when they find out. They argue that an animatronic doesn’t belong in a zoo because it is “artificial” to which McCain simply replies: “Having pandas in England is artificial for God’s sake!”

This quote crystalizes the constructedness of environmental discourse and its understanding of the “natural” a theme we have spent quite a bit of time on lately.

(A Toxic Text) Spaceballs

The comedy Spaceballs came out in 1987, was directed by Mel Brooks and starred Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks. Though the film is mainly a parody of Star Wars it has its own little story about a civilization of space-balls (90’s- pun intended) that has “foolishly squandered their atmosphere”. This starting point serves as a McGuffin to drive the story of kidnapping, saving and returning the Druish princess in distress.
The environmentally conscious part of the movie is pure toxic discourse. The planet Spaceball, though futuristic and still populated, has barely any atmosphere and looks like a mixture of a golf court and the moon (interesting design though you wouldn’t want to live there). A civilization that has used up all its atmosphere and needs to rob other planets in order to survive is clearly a form of Gothicized Squalor (though a child friendly version as it is a comedy after all).
Spaceballs shows that you can have a great comedy which is environmentally conscious without that part seeming taped on or too morally patronizing. You can leave the cinema laughing but as you drive home you might think about that car of yours and how it might not have been necessary to drive those three blocks to the cinema. After all you wouldn’t want to end up like President Skroob (the old Schmock), would you? *click*

Posted by Konstantin Zielke

(A Toxic Text) Cars

The Disney PIXAR movie Cars by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft exhibits a striking amount of pastoral. While the story focuses on Lightning McQueen and his journey to humbleness, there is also the storyline about Radiator Springs, a town that was forgotten as the interstates were built to get people from one city to another as fast as possible. The segment often called “The Story of Route 66” is a great example of elegiac pastoral as it mourns the loss of the harmonic balance of nature and Route 66. The decline of Radiator Springs is shown in flashbacks showing the town in its former paradisiacal beauty lost to the fast living times that can’t afford to wait and look at beauty.
The scene is accompanied by James Taylor’s “Our Town” which might seem a little heavy on the pastoral but works quite well with the rest of the movie’s soundtrack.
And as a treat:




P.S.:
With my rather brilliant nephew Fynn being nearly six it shouldn’t be a wonder that I’ve seen this movie.
It’s one of his favourites and we watched it a couple of times together (in English, of course, seeing that his is better than mine).
P.P.S.:
Perhaps I am not American enough but I just can’t any kind of harmony in “concrete streets + nature”.

Posted by Konstantin Zielke

(A Toxic Text) Smile

The song “Smile” written by James Marsters (probably better known for his acting roles as Spike on Buffy and Angel, Brainiac on Smallville orCaptain Jack Hart on Torchwood), performed by Ghost of the Robot, is a rather romantic piece of music. It is about a man who has fallen in love and is now thinking about it.
The toxically interesting part of the song can be found in its second strophe where it says:
“And I'm driving home, it's 5 AM
And I look at the sun come up over the hills
And the clouds are turning pink and green
And all I can see is her eyes”
What struck me as odd was this colour scheme of the clouds. Coming from a rather small town I wasn’t used to pollution having that much of an effect on the sky. Marsters is from Los Angeles, a city with such a high degree of air pollution it causes the sunlight to shine in many different shades of the light spectrum, while the smog is dense enough to conceal the HOLLYWOOD sign at day from only a few hundred metres away.
The baffling part is that people in cities like LA are used to these circumstances of a polluted environment. To Marsters the colour scheme is normal and simply resembles the emotional state of being in love.

PS: The example of the HOLLYWOOD sign is (I think) from Michel Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine”.

Posted by Konstantin Zielke