Viewing what comes naturally: A feminist approach to television natural history

Captive audiences

“…58 Wildlife documentaries serve to consolidate the family unit through a shared experience of viewing content seen as morally improving in its apparent educational value, serious tone, and prompting of "higher" emotions such as awe through a depiction of "elevating" moments of animal life. 59 The scheduling of the wildlife documentary, typically found in the UK in the "family-friendly" viewing slot of the evening hours before the 9pm watershed, 60 has allowed it to play a related role to the zoo as "quality family time." Tiger King is likely to recall for many viewers the animal and wildlife programming that has been a regular feature on our televisions since Zoo Parade in the 1950s.…”

Captive audiences

“…58 Wildlife documentaries serve to consolidate the family unit through a shared experience of viewing content seen as morally improving in its apparent educational value, serious tone, and prompting of "higher" emotions such as awe through a depiction of "elevating" moments of animal life. 59 The scheduling of the wildlife documentary, typically found in the UK in the "family-friendly" viewing slot of the evening hours before the 9pm watershed, 60 has allowed it to play a related role to the zoo as "quality family time." Tiger King is likely to recall for many viewers the animal and wildlife programming that has been a regular feature on our televisions since Zoo Parade in the 1950s.…”

Sexual Nature? (Re)presenting Sexuality and Science in the Museum

“…These longstanding traditions of mutual shaping between scientific discourses, sexual norms and their governance have contributed to a tendency for popular natural history to represent animals not only as traditionally gendered, but also as reproductive, monogamous and heterosexual (Crowther, 1997;Mills, 2013). In recent years, these representations have been increasingly challenged by the increasing public visibility of same-sex and non-reproductive sexual behaviour in animals, for example in cases of 'gay penguins' pairing up to raise chicks in zoos (Talburt and Matus, 2012).…”

Picturizing science

“…These criticisms particularly pertain to the natural history documentary, a (sub)genre which set the standard for the presentation of science on television both in terms of content and style (Jeffries, 2003). Detractors contend it is precisely the misleading combination of narrative authority and symbolic or metaphoric images that renders these documentaries' claims to veracity and accuracy controversial (Crowther, 1997;Haraway, 1989).…”

Captive audiences

“…58 Wildlife documentaries serve to consolidate the family unit through a shared experience of viewing content seen as morally improving in its apparent educational value, serious tone, and prompting of "higher" emotions such as awe through a depiction of "elevating" moments of animal life. 59 The scheduling of the wildlife documentary, typically found in the UK in the "family-friendly" viewing slot of the evening hours before the 9pm watershed, 60 has allowed it to play a related role to the zoo as "quality family time." Tiger King is likely to recall for many viewers the animal and wildlife programming that has been a regular feature on our televisions since Zoo Parade in the 1950s.…”

Sexual Nature? (Re)presenting Sexuality and Science in the Museum

“…These longstanding traditions of mutual shaping between scientific discourses, sexual norms and their governance have contributed to a tendency for popular natural history to represent animals not only as traditionally gendered, but also as reproductive, monogamous and heterosexual (Crowther, 1997;Mills, 2013). In recent years, these representations have been increasingly challenged by the increasing public visibility of same-sex and non-reproductive sexual behaviour in animals, for example in cases of 'gay penguins' pairing up to raise chicks in zoos (Talburt and Matus, 2012).…”

Picturizing science

“…These criticisms particularly pertain to the natural history documentary, a (sub)genre which set the standard for the presentation of science on television both in terms of content and style (Jeffries, 2003). Detractors contend it is precisely the misleading combination of narrative authority and symbolic or metaphoric images that renders these documentaries' claims to veracity and accuracy controversial (Crowther, 1997;Haraway, 1989).…”

Captive audiences

“…58 Wildlife documentaries serve to consolidate the family unit through a shared experience of viewing content seen as morally improving in its apparent educational value, serious tone, and prompting of "higher" emotions such as awe through a depiction of "elevating" moments of animal life. 59 The scheduling of the wildlife documentary, typically found in the UK in the "family-friendly" viewing slot of the evening hours before the 9pm watershed, 60 has allowed it to play a related role to the zoo as "quality family time." Tiger King is likely to recall for many viewers the animal and wildlife programming that has been a regular feature on our televisions since Zoo Parade in the 1950s.…”

Sexual Nature? (Re)presenting Sexuality and Science in the Museum

“…These longstanding traditions of mutual shaping between scientific discourses, sexual norms and their governance have contributed to a tendency for popular natural history to represent animals not only as traditionally gendered, but also as reproductive, monogamous and heterosexual (Crowther, 1997;Mills, 2013). In recent years, these representations have been increasingly challenged by the increasing public visibility of same-sex and non-reproductive sexual behaviour in animals, for example in cases of 'gay penguins' pairing up to raise chicks in zoos (Talburt and Matus, 2012).…”

Picturizing science

“…These criticisms particularly pertain to the natural history documentary, a (sub)genre which set the standard for the presentation of science on television both in terms of content and style (Jeffries, 2003). Detractors contend it is precisely the misleading combination of narrative authority and symbolic or metaphoric images that renders these documentaries' claims to veracity and accuracy controversial (Crowther, 1997;Haraway, 1989).…”