The Problem with Ecopornography

Though I can understand the rationale behind Welling's usage of the term "ecopornography," I feel that I am in the same boat as a few others in the sense that I find its somewhat questionable. Welling's primary reason for using the term "ecopornography" is because representations of nature have appropriated the visual language used in sexualized depictions of women. This has significant ethical implications because the rhetorical model of ecopornography has actual persuasive power and it shapes the way humans think of their relationship to nature. Also like pornography, representations of nature can be utilized in the name of empowering the subjects represented when in actuality it financially exploits the subjects in order to facilitate agendas contrary to their interests.

Ecoporn

   When I first started reading Welling's "Ecoporn" it took me a while to grasp what the actual definition of the term was. It wasn't until page 57 that I was able to put different pieces of the definition together to form one whole, encompassing idea. What I gathered is that ecoporn is "a type of contemporary visual discourse made up of highly idealized... views of landscape and nonhuman animals" and that it "supplies viewers with a fantasy of... total visual power over these nonhuman creatures and habitats that are both comforting humanized and pleasingly untainted by humans." This goes back to the idea that we have covered in other readings, the idea of "power." Welling mentions how ecoporn creates this role for the viewer as the "male surveyor," or the overlooking male subject to nature's unseeing female object. This also touches on the concept of feminism that we have been noticing in the past couple weeks with Campbell and Heilbrun's readings. There are many different ways in which one could read into connecting ecoporn and feminism, but one of the ideas that Welling mentioned that stood out to me was this idea of a fantasy of "wild animal woman" or the "sexual beast." This concept branches into what Welling calls a "truly hardcore obsession with the explicit sexuality and violent death." I find this interesting because it seems so primal, when the idea of ecoporn is relatively modern to my understanding. But this might just be another example of how ecoporn is, in itself, contradicting.

Paradox of Agent/cy

The Barton article helped me to see an instance of the paradox of agent/cy, because it showed an example of an ad campaign that on the surface seems to give agency to a group, but in reality is taking agency away from them. By upholding those with disabilities as Others and lumping them all together, the campaign took agency away from the disabled. I noticed in the ads shown, among all the other things pointed out about them in the article, that it was never the disabled person/s that was given something to say. The slogan 'Give Once for All' was very telling concerning about how the charity was viewed largely as a practical business solution, and about attitudes towards disability and charity. The subtext of 'Give Once for All' means 'Give us a large sum of money once a year and you won't have to do anything about disability or the disabled until we come around next year.'

Girls just wanna have fun

It saddened me to read the feminism readings. I understand that this was a problem in these days, but I did not understand the severity. I was originally signed up for a women studies class this semester, and I am almost glad that I ended up replacing it with another class. I do not think I could handle a whole class of these readings. This is not my cup of tea, and I feel as though, if I were alive during this time, that men would not like me. I would be a rebel. I would never be the women whom's place was at home or in the kitchen. I love to cook, but i do it for fun. If it were expected of me, I probably would not find it as "fun".

Ecoporn: At Least the Motives are Good?

At first glance, I understood “ecopornography” to be when natural elements resemble human body parts, especially sexually suggestive parts and poses. I wondered why a person would write an article about this phenomenon, and even more so, why we would be reading it for this class. I then started to slowly understand what the article meant by the term. If I understood correctly, ecopornography is when nature is captured on photo or video in a way that is highly idealized and/or even fictionalized, the way pornography exaggerates human sex to something that it really isn’t. It is misleading and indulgent. I find the idea of this interesting. What I had a harder time understanding is why, in more cases than not, this would be a damaging thing. As the article pointed out, ecoporn has attempted to change the perception of certain elements of nature in the mind of the human.

Ecoporn

At first when I was reading this article i couldn't conceptualize how Welling could connect pornography and the visual images we use to make a point when in comes to saving something animal or planet related, But near the end it clicked. He was comparing everything to pornography because everything visually (for the most part) is heading in that direction. Ads TV, movies, etc all have these sexual connotations and Economical topics are heading that way.

The only way I can rationalize how Welling came up with this idea is by referring back to the feminist pieces we read last week. Like how it was discussed in the articles we read last week there is a structure, a way that we as a society are conducting ourselves and allowing ourselves to be influence. Last week we saw the structure was  masculine and feminine roles and this piece takes that structure and digs deeper, pin points sex or visual pleasure.

Untitled

I learned a lot from all of the articles that we used to study agency, so I'm not sure if I could pick one that really hit me. I really appreciated the ideas Aristotle presented. I thought what he said about Happiness and Political Science and the way we use, define and work within them was completely accurate. I also thought that Barthes in Death of the Author had an interesting perspective I'd never thought to take before. But truly, there is a death of oneself (or should be to an extent) when writing for an audience. The audience for a piece is of vast importance to the piece itself, in the sense that it directly correlates to the way it is written and read. I think in order for a piece to be fully written a death has to occur for it's full effect to come to light.

Barton's "Ecoporn"

I couldn’t read Barton “Ecoporn” without thinking of Campbell’s feminist writings because Barton opened up with a similar man vs. woman theme. Just as nature is portrayed in literature as feminine, Barton compared women to nature and the people who manipulate it (ecopornographers) to men. When I look at a postcard or an advertisement for a vacation spot, I am of course aware that they are trying to make the environment look as perfect as possible, but I never consider what animals or natural habitats were destroyed to make it look so perfect.

Barton

One point in this article that really hit me was in the second paragraph when Barton is listing some examples of the negative terminology that has worked its way into our cultural lexicon. This is a problem we have in our society, particularly the younger part of it. These words continue to be used to describe anything that “doesn’t work right”, despite the general knowledge that it is “politically incorrect”, and that term is usually said in an aside sneer, to do so. And when a person is called out on it or asked to stop, the usual defense is that they ‘didn’t mean it like that’ and that other person needs to lighten up.

Feminist Literary Criticisms

This week we were asked to read Campbell’s “Man Cannot Speak for Her” and Heilbrun “Writing a Woman’s Life.” Having had read this during the week I had to also turn in a Preparatory Exercise about both of these readings. After reading both pieces by Campbell and Heilbrun, I enjoyed reading Campbell’s piece a lot more. Campbell had valid points when she made arguments based on gender rules versus justice. Which then led to feminine style. It reflects the learning experiences of when and if it was a less confrontational violation. It also gives men constrained agency.

Ecoporn

Before I begin to analyze Bart H. Welling's Ecoporn, I just want to say that I found this article to be very well written, enlightening, and intriguing. I will admit that when I first began reading, I thought the concept of ecoporn was completely ridiculous (I actually underlined the first sentence of the article and wrote "...what?"), but having read the piece in its entirety, I think Welling makes many valid and interesting points on the way that we view nature and what this realization means for the future of the animal kingdom. From my understanding of the reading, there are four overarching points (and multiple examples) that he touches on to connect the way that nature is portrayed by so called "environmentalists" and the characteristics of pornography...

Give the audience what they want or need??

When we left class Friday I was honestly pretty amazed at the class’s responses to the two different articles on Sojourner Truth. I did not understand why most of the student’s thought it was in Gage’s benefit to please his audience by writing an article that made Sojourner appear as this stereotypical black slave. Instead of agreeing with or appreciating Campbell’s efforts in making the article a more accurate account of Sojourner’s character and her tone and style during that period in time.

I believe that most people would agree with me when I say when dealing with a political historical event or symbol such as Sojourner and her speech I want as close as I can get to the truth. Actually when being told any piece of information no matter how meaningless I would rather the truth than a false statement or persona for that matter.

Why not Textual Practices of Exposure?

After reading Barton's article, I'm not sure I agree with Barton's idea that charitable organizations like United Way use a discourse of disability to "erase" the experience of disability in children and adults. I also don't agree that pity and fear motivated people to donate to the disabled. (What about that fact the some people are inherently good-willed and willing to help?) In fact, it seems the complete opposite. Organizations dedicated to helping the disabled are not erasing disabled people's independence or treating them as "Others", these organizations are just raising awareness and spreading information about the disabled. Yes, some of the ads might use a slight shock value, like the Pamela and Arthur ad or "what if this wheelchair was yours," but it's not meant to cause pity or fear or specifically isolate the disabled. Barton says that "the textual practices establishing these representations draw upon and maintain the powerful stereotypes of the able-bodies that disabled bodies and disabled bodies are separate, Others in body and therefore in life. The experience of living in a disabled body, the experience of living in an able-bodied society, the normalcy of a life, particularly an adult life, with a disability- all of these complexities are erased" (Barton 188). It's the opposite. These ads are drawing attention to a problem that could benefit from aid. These textual ads are exposing an issue, not trying to hide it. In some time periods, it was seen as embarrassing to have disabled family members and as a result those people were socially isolated. United Way and their ad campaigns did the opposite. They took the term "disabled" from out the shadows and brought it into a public forum. "Textual Practices of Erasure" seems a complete misnomer.

man cannot speak for her...but does anyway.

I have to admit: the articles that have actually stuck with me the most were the articles arguing the "feminist" rhetoric and their place in history. Like Natalie mentioned, it's interesting to see how these can still be applicable today with the upcoming election. Campbell argues the purpose of speech and rhetoric in Man Cannot Speak For Her, the one that I actually have been thinking about lately. She mentions that women cannot easily participate in public debate because arguing anything other than what seems to be "for the good of others" makes a woman seem selfish and unappreciative of anything she has.

If you think about the way that women have been treated in the upcoming election and the numerous conventions and debates recently, it's interesting to see the possible ways this could be taken. But it's more than just that - women have, until recently, been forced to take a second place seat, the be homemakers and housewives and mothers and nothing else.

Each Agent for Themselves.

     Campbell makes some heavy observations on Sojourner Truth’s speech at the Women’s Rights Convention; more specifically Gage’s version. Gage’s version of the speech sounds like a uneducated, stereotypical black women speaking. We know that isn’t true in some respect. Truth was a woman who grew up with a Dutch English background. So the imagined tone and dialect of Truth could be entirely made up.

     Yet, Campbell’s version of the speech is also different. Granted, I have never heard someone with a Dutch English accent speak, but Campbell’s version is not what I imagined. When we were shown Marius Robinson’s recounting of the speech, it seemed more authentic. Yet, it also didn’t portray the intensity and the “language” that Campbell and Gage both have in theirs.

The Author-Function of Ecoporn

One interesting link between Bart H. Welling’s Ecoporn: On the Limits of Visualizing the Nonhuman and other theorists read for class was the perception of the Author-Function. Similarly to how Barthe and Foucault address the situation of the author being replaced by the author-function, Welling addresses Ecoporn’s commercials which contain a unique author-function that is designed to remove guilt in consumers heads that is a result of man’s nature-destructive existence.

Ecoporn, as Welling defines it, is the way in which corporations portray themselves as environmentally friendly companies through advertisement when in reality their existence only negatively affects the environment. The “Ecoporn” that these companies create come in the form of advertisements-mostly commercials- that conjure up a convenient image of an environmentally friendly company. This links to Foucault’s notion of the author being replaced by the Author-Function when Welling explains, in just one example, how these companies create commercials that seem “natural” because there is no human author in the picture, which gives the viewer a sense of connection to raw, uninhabited nature because of the very absence of a guiding human being.

Welling's "Ecoporn"

            Welling’s article on “Ecoporn” was a term I had never heard of before, and the concept itself was something I had given very little thought too. Welling gives notion that individuals like myself, who are nature enthusiasts and lovers of the environment as a whole are being lied to in a sense. Like propaganda or product placement advertisement, individuals are seeing the nature from our living room television sets, and the environment that “they” want us to see.

            Beautiful nature calendars on sale in the mall promoting the protection of the rainforest, with every page photo shopped to eye pleasing perfection. The sunset, blues and reds dancing across the evening sky to make it seem as if the most picturesque place on earth, these are the calendars that line cubicle walls and keep us day dreaming during the mundane hours of the day. Now Welling is telling me that all this time I might be being ripped off and some of the money I donate to environmental protection, might not even be going there?

Ecoporn, and text as a subjugation of the natural

In Ecoporn, Welling writes about the manipulation of nature in order to create ecoporn. It seems to me that this concept can be applied to all texts. In class last week we talked about how the transcripts of Sojourner Truth’s speech were not true representations of the actual speech, but they were accepted anyways and their differences added meaning to the speech. For me, Welling’s essay brings up the idea that to create a text at all means to take the subject away from its natural form.

Welling writes on page 57 that ecopornography is created out of “highly idealized, anthromorphized views,” and that the images found in ecopornography are often “composed or manipulated to stress their subjects’ innate similarities to the human body and to human social and power structures.” When we looked at the transcriptions of Truth’s speech, we saw that each author had changed the text to emphasize what they had felt was most important. For Gage, we felt he had a desire to maintain the cadence of the speaker’s voice and the history that carried through in her accent. For Campbell, it was more important that the transcript be easy to read and more politically correct.

Man Cannot Speak For Her

The most compelling piece I took with me throughout last weeks readings was the adoption of the "feminine argument." I've learned about this form of speaking before but never knew how it began. As a voter in the upcoming election I have followed the presidential candidates closely and can see how this "feminine argument" is still so powerful yet underused. The invitation of audience participation brings about a unity in both the men and women and answering and that of the speaker no matter the sex. This brings about a unified need. Identification with audience is one of the key aspects taught in rhetoric class. It enforces ones ethos. It makes so much more sense when you see debates now and someone is fighting for a middle ground, that person is likely to be favored by more. This objective is reinforced in Heilbrun's piece when she realizes that changing the voice of the speech to the fictional voice identifies readers with her for many different reasons. The agency seems almost a balance between the two parties, the author and the reader, but weighing more towards the reader because much is up to interpretation and identification with one speaker may be for different traits that intended.

Ecoporn. What next?

On and off throughout the article, I noticed that the author had a tendency to rant- as if he got on a point and just wanted to spew and vent, and I was having a really hard time getting past some of it-especially when he went so far as to say that the models that we are shown in nature viewings-fighting other animals, fighting other males and breeding with the females just so the females can reproduce more males- were meant to "arouse fear in women and to promote the sense of needing men's protection." Through these parts I think he began to lose his validity and steer away from the argument on which he was making, which was the fact that humans tend to take advantage of nature by photographing and documenting the "outside world" in ways that aren't necessarily natural or accurate. I would like to know, if the author does not want programmers or people to watch documentaries which portray animals doing what they do every day-which does in fact, consist of eating, mating, fighting, and hunting-what else would he like us to watch? Would he rather us remain ignorant and not show any type of interest in the world around us in order to keep the purity and sanctity of the animal planet in tact?

A Floridian's response to Ecoporn

I am a Floridian. Between the campaigns for returning the Everglades to their pre-Disney state, to county-based efforts to limit storm drain runoff, to the issue occupying most of Welling's piece, protection of the Florida Panther, I have been living with conservation efforts since elementary school. Living in a cable-less household until high school, my family spent our evenings watching more wholesome television, usually PBS wildlife specials. My credit union was represented by the Florida Panther and every month, they had a new trading card featuring an endangered species to hand out to children who deposited into their savings accounts. My mother has an annual pass to our county's zoo which is supposed to help conservation projects.

After reading Welling's Ecoporn, though, I just feel confused and lied to, something I wasn't expecting to feel from this reading.

Agency is Also, a Neccessary Liar

For the sake of understanding Rhetorical action, I guess the point of Campbell's argument (for class) was that a text can become an agent, or have agency.

Great.

What I found more interesting was that she seems to quantify Agency on a level of what is "better," or what is "worse." I guess the definitions I want to use here for those words is based in, what was more effective, or which agency had the greater effect. Campbell, after exercising her agency in rewriting the speech in a more accurate manner, came to the realization that the effect of inserting the truth (or something closer to it) actually harmed Truth (the person) and her message. In contrast, Gage's agency turned the women's rights message into political activism for abolition. It was the switch in agency on part of the scriptor that seemed to govern clear differences in level of effect. And, since Campbell had revised this later in history, the switch in agency seemed to threaten the power and discourse behind the message.

"Truths Agency"

When reading Campbell I could not help but notice how she speaks of Truths agency, rather than calling her the agent. I felt that I started seeing more clearly the lines of what agency is and what an agent is. Truth is surely both. Much of her agency, as Campbell tells us, is lines reiterated from others as a part of the movements she is speaking about. This is what also makes her an agent; what Truth speaks about is larger than her own sufferings and she becomes an agent for the pain all women and slaves.  Being able to recognize how an agent and agency are different allows you to see how each work together. The two ideas coincide so much that is difficult to explain how they work so I will try to list them:

Pity and Fear...is it really fair?

I found Barton's analysis of pity and fear being used throughout ads by The United Way to be very interesting. It was difficult for me to tell if Barton supported the use or was completely against it. I don't think that she truly took a side, but focused more on analyzing the issue. I do think that the read would have been more interesting if she did choose more of a side and somewhat criticized the issue. But, she still evaluated some very interesting points and made me look at the use of text in ads in a very different light. I also began to develop a different feeling in regards to the steps taken by the United Way. The most hard hitting example for me was the ad example of Arthur and Pamela. It seemed as if the pictures they used of the children were quite degrading and disrespectful. I think that it also gave off the wrong idea to its audience. The audience was beginning to believe that the only reason why these children became "better" was because of their money and getting "better" may be different to the children than how adults may view the situation.

the text as agency

In section 5 Campbell states that one of her definitions of agency is that it is textual or that “texts have agency” (Campbell, 7). She goes on to talk about how a text has many different audiences that are to read the text written but that it is the form of the text that holds the power of it. It allows them to categorize what they are reading. She goes on later to say that “form is the foundation of all communication, but it is also a type of agency that has the power to separate a text form its nominal author” (Campbell, 7). So with Campbell saying this and her discussion of Gage’s fictive text I think I can finally understand why she decided it might be a bad idea to have removed the dialect that smothered the text in the first place. Even though, as we discussed in class, that Truth was a freed Dutch American slave with English being her second language, not a broken black southern accent, in my mind she seems like someone who represented everyone as a whole so maybe Gage wrote the speech in a way that would be more relatable to the type of demographic at the time.