From blindness to sight environmental epistemology in 1990s Disney films

Abstract

Although Disney animated films are often celebrated for depicting positive images of nature and for promoting environmental conservation, Disney's presentation of the environment is somewhat problematic in that characters' relationships with nature are varied and often contradictory between films and an epistemic dichotomy is set up between the “civilized,” cosmopolitan society and “uncivilized,” wild settings. How characters from different films comprehend these two worlds and navigate their differences is displayed through various elements of film such as narrative, image, and musical score. Examining animated Disney films from 1990 through the early 2000s that directly engage in environment themes reveals a clear, demonstrable evolution in the ways that characters come to `know' the environment. Beginning with Beauty and the Beast (1991) and ending with Brother Bear (2003), these films show a progression in the capability of their characters to both apprehend and relate to the environment. This paper explores three thematic and chronological groups. Characters in Beauty and the Beast are depicted as unable to reliably apprehend the environment or relate to it, an epistemic deficiency due to an absent, rather than underdeveloped capacity for knowing the environment. The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), and Tarzan (1999) present characters with incomplete apprehension of the environment, requiring the assistance of a “savage” mediator to fully apprehend and relate to nature. Finally, in The Emperor's New Groove (2000) and Brother Bear, the characters are able to apprehend and relate to nature without a mediator, but must undergo a transformative event to do so.