Real Animals and the Problem of Anthropomorphism in Children’s Film

Abstract

06Abstract: Throughout their history, Western children’s films (along with the subgenre of family films) have recurrently featured real animals, usually as the partner or sidekick of a protagonist child. This chapter examines the significance that the real animal body, whether a wild or domestic one, has within the genre, and the narrative and ethical challenges it faces within visual culture. By focusing primarily on the tensions between the authentic and the artificial within the context of modernity, the study offers a critical perspective on how anthropomorphism is practiced through the conventions that are appropriate to the genre, and on how such idiosyncratic narrativization of the animal then contributes to the consolidation of ethical discourses pertaining to the use of animals in the film industry.