Location
Greenspun Hall, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Description
This thesis identifies and explains the mechanisms within two cli-fi films, The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008), and Interstellar (2014), to offer an account of: (1) their purpose in helping us to understand and cope with climate change, and (2) their use in the transmission of values and ideologies in order to build and strengthen community. Because cli-fi films begin from a dystopic vision of a possible future, it fulfills the "blame" function of epideictic in order to provoke the "ecological imagination." Through this provocation we are then provided the possibility of hope and redemption through the adoption of the film's values or “equipment.” As the film’s imaginations of climate change plays out, these ideological attitudes can be excavated to demonstrate how the texts embody the values of certain political orientations, which range from EcoMarxism to Neoliberal Environmentalism in the films I analyze.
Keywords
Climatic changes; Environmentalism; Feature films; Motion pictures
Disciplines
Film and Media Studies
Language
English
Cli-Fi Cinema: An Epideictic Rhetoric of Blame
Greenspun Hall, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
This thesis identifies and explains the mechanisms within two cli-fi films, The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008), and Interstellar (2014), to offer an account of: (1) their purpose in helping us to understand and cope with climate change, and (2) their use in the transmission of values and ideologies in order to build and strengthen community. Because cli-fi films begin from a dystopic vision of a possible future, it fulfills the "blame" function of epideictic in order to provoke the "ecological imagination." Through this provocation we are then provided the possibility of hope and redemption through the adoption of the film's values or “equipment.” As the film’s imaginations of climate change plays out, these ideological attitudes can be excavated to demonstrate how the texts embody the values of certain political orientations, which range from EcoMarxism to Neoliberal Environmentalism in the films I analyze.