Nature on Screen: Making ‘the Environment’ Visible in Children’s Film

Abstract

Children’s films are not usually classified as ‘ecocinema’, especially when they are constrained by marketing and branding strategies designed to draw children into the market as consumers. Nevertheless, children’s films have played an important role in establishing patterns of nature representation on screen. With this in mind, Chap. 5 considers how children’s films can contribute to the building of environmental knowledge by encouraging certain ways of seeing environmental problems. This chapter argues that, while some children’s films confront environmental problems directly, others take a more subtle or ‘sidelong’ glance at them, while some films obscure them altogether. This raises important questions about how children are constructed as viewers of both environmental problems and the more-than-human world more broadly. Through an analysis of three examples—The Jungle Book, Moana, and The Lorax—the chapter investigates the various ways in which the childlike gaze might be mobilised in relation to environmental literacy, asking how filmmakers invite children to ‘see’ nature in a time of crisis. The chapter will also investigate the role played by transmedia extensions and paratexts, which can confirm, illuminate, or undermine the environmental messages at work in children’s film.