‘All Fishing Is Wildlife Poaching:’ Nonhuman Animal Imagery and Mutual Avowal in Racing Extinction and Seaspiracy

Abstract

Images of nonhuman animals may be effective tools in producing climate concern and empathy for animals, particularly if animals are shown in natural habitats. Visual and narrative analysis of the documentary Racing Extinction identifies a practice of selectively recognizing the individuality of certain animals. Despite emphasizing the intrinsic worth of often-marginalized animals, Racing Extinction reproduces the marginalization of domesticated animals raised for consumption and less charismatic marine life. A close reading of the film’s animal imagery also reveals a spatialized bias—visualizing violence against marine life overwhelmingly in China and Indonesia and by comparison associating the U.S. with indirect climate harm rather than the direct killing of animals. Intertwining a decolonial ethic with a critical animal studies perspective, this paper reveals how disjointed imagery of nonhuman animal suffering facilitates racial scapegoating, masks the exploitation of marine life by the U.S. and partitions uneven ethical responsibilities towards nonhuman animals. This is contrasted to the documentary Seaspiracy, which advances a universal, non-speciesist ethic of “mutual avowal”, contextualizing images of violence against marine life in a global frame.

From «Cowspiracy» to «Seaspiracy»: Discursive Strategies in Contemporary Vegan Advocacy Documentaries

“…The thematic and narrative parallels of Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy encourage a conception of the two films as forming a hermeneutic unity. The combined analysis of the two documentaries thus draws on the theoretical sources referred to in the previous section while also considering scholarly output on Cowspiracy (Lockwood, 2016;Weik von Mossner, 2021) and Seaspiracy (Lamb, 2021;Hearne, 2021;Pauly, 2021;Belhabib, 2021;Rooney, 2022;Harris, 2022;Yeo & Silberg, 2022). A qualitative approach is adopted to assess the films' discursive strategies, using the tools offered by film analysis.…”

Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue “Communication in Defense of Nonhuman Animals during an Extinction and Climate Crisis”

“…Sean Quartz expands the notion of critical animal and media studies with creative cultural studies to rhetorically explore how the main octopus featured in the documentary My Octopus Teacher helps us become more-than-human and embrace coexistence and animal flourishing (Quartz 2022). Foregrounding a decolonial ethic within critical animal studies, David Rooney, critiques the documentary Racing Extinction to suggest more equitable representation of both Western and Eastern killing of marine life in commercial fishing practices, to demonstrate our ethical obligations toward all sea animals (such as fishes), not just charismatic mammalian species (Rooney 2022). Switching from media discourse to political discourse, Debra Merskin seeks to understand and transcend the urban-rural divide present in arguments for and against banning coyote-killing contests in Oregon, in order to help animal advocates to provide more persuasive and understanding rationales for offering alternatives to killing contests that will resonate with rural participants who have historically celebrated these mass hunting events (Merskin 2022).…”