Being Human: In-Flight Entertainment and the Environmental Dystopia

Helen Simpson’s In-Flight Entertainment has the potential to be great, if not just for its gloriously ironic title. No, really, I think if you read this while jetting off on a plane to an expensive vacations, it would probably reduce you to an emotional mess of guilt rather than ‘entertain’ you in anyway. It’s bluntness fits the short story genre, and the modern, completely-to-the-point style of narrative that often crops up throughout the collection should really connect with a modern audience who are probably immune to emotional response thanks to all those government-sponsored ads about children who ‘MUST LIVE WITH THE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF CO2’.

That’s right, little girl, climate change is YOUR responsibility. Sleep tight!

But that is EXACTLY where Simpson fails. The bluntness of the stories means that unfortunately, too many assumptions are made about the reader to the point where, just like the advert above, the reader could easily dismiss the text as overly emotive and down right forceful. There is absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to create an emotional connection between the theme/subject matter (especially when concerning environmental matters) and the audience that is intended to receive the text. It can be a very effective way of communicating a message while also engaging in a discourse that will leave a positive impact upon the reader.

For example, this:

No, I promise that this is not going to be ANOTHER post of me purely gushing about a film that influenced my opinions and attitudes to the natural world. But I HAVE to talk about Wall-E, because this film is (in my overly inflated opinion) perhaps one of the most important films EVER MADE. Whereas Simpson’s dystopia is annoying, preachy, and too inhumane, Wall-E presents to us the exact same humanity-driven dystopia, if not perhaps an even more alarming one, without having to resort to emotional bribery or downright guilt tripping.

In Wall-E, humanity has supposedly reached a point of no return. Life on Earth can no longer be sustained, the pollution and destruction to the natural world has forced humanity into an exodus. All that is left is the discards of civilisation and a few cockroaches. Sounds bleak right, especially when accompanied by a contrastingly jolly song from Hello Dolly? Not so different really from the turmoil that features in ‘Diary of an Interesting Year’. We are again led to believe that humanity has reached a ‘no turning back’ point, from whence society will dissolve into organised chaos where the basic humanity of everyday people will suddenly vanish into thin air as the last remaining people become savage and unrecognisable, just like the post-apocalyptic landscape in which they now reside.

I admire that Simpson uses a lot of VERY disturbing and serious themes to highlight the severity of the effects of climate change, but the bleakness does not inspire feelings of action or even of remorse. The various short stories instead constantly remind us that it’s too late for change, that no one else will even bother to listen to us ‘converted environmentalists’, and that we may as well lay in the bed we have made. Wall-E on the other hand, well…it’s a pretty long (and supremely amazing) movie, but let’s just say that the ending of this film is much more optimistic in its outlook. Here, humanity is capable of working together, to rebuild, to renew. We make mistakes, but we perhaps one day we will be able to correct those mistakes. Most importantly, nature is not some lost cause for white middle-class suburbanites to mourn.

You could argue that this ending is also anthropocentric, but then you could also argue that this film is not so much about nature alone as it is about the relationship/commitment between humanity AND nature. Also, that little plant is my hero. Hold in there, planty!

Perhaps my biggest complaint about In-Flight Entertainment is that it denies any kind of variation in nature or people. After all, the only people with any interest in discourse about nature are all white, middle-class, affluent, business types, right? Because that’s kind of what this text assumes right from the get go, and the only issues it ever really tackles are ones that only a very small percentage of people could ever relate to. Do you travel first-class nearly every week while zooming across the world on your very important business meetings? SHAME ON YOU, OF COURSE YOU DO.

I understand the need for people to be made aware of environmental issues, but lecturing them on extremely narrow-minded habits that only a fraction of the literate world probably experience just seems downright patronising. I have absolutely no doubt in the scientific findings surrounding climate change, and yet the short stories throughout this text feel the need to constantly berate me that I am a supposed NON-BELIEVER OF SCIENCE because…the text goes by the assumption that the readers are ignorant? I’m not entirely sure. Nature is barely even mentioned in this text, other than as either a conceptual idea in the dystopian section, or as background for the human interaction in the rest of the stories. ‘Geography Boy’ is perhaps the worst instance of this, where climate change is intertwined with an uncharismatic relationship between two young lovers. For all the talk of environmental awareness, neither character seems to be making an active effort to contribute towards any kind of positive actions against it. Well, other than natter on about it between dates.

In some respects I understand that this is a good reflection of realistic human thought and reaction, but the severity of the environmental points just does not seem to blend well with the casual tone of the stories themselves. Wall-E can be as sentimental, as human-orientated, and as conflicted in its message as any of the stories from In-Flight Entertainment, but its sincerity makes all the difference. Simpson is obviously capable of bringing humour into even the darkest of situations, but humour is only capable of so much when dealing with such a serious topic. The grim depictions that feature in ‘Diary of an Interesting Year’ are almost too devoid of humanity to create any kind of deep attachment to the story, and when placed among the lighthearted material that the other stories possess, it is difficult to read it at face value.

As an apology for having to read through this convoluted and rambling rant, please enjoy this gorgeous 2008 short film by Behn Zeitlin (director of Beasts of the Southern Wild), which concerns the aftermath of a natural disaster on a small community.

Princess Mononoke

I love films. I love literature too in equal amounts, but it can’t be denied that books and films are two completely different forms of media. The visual aspect of cinema in many ways makes it a far more appropriate form for tackling the theme of environmentalism and nature. Beasts of the Southern Wild, for instance, absolutely captivated me and helped me understand some rather deep and complex environmental issues, combining the emotional and physical needs of humankind with the equally important Fellow blogger N. Lloyd’s post on the representation of nature in some of Disney’s classic princess films piqued my interest in how animated films deal with the same issues.

Animation is not a sign of simplicity or childishness anymore than a live-action signifies maturity or depth. Studio Ghibli’s 1997 animated feature Princess Mononoke has been one of my all time favourite films since I first watched it way back when I was fourteen. I have always had a deep love of animation, but the majority of the content that I had thus far seen was limited to large scale Western cinema, such as Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. All produced films that have been culturally influential and often deeply, deeply meaningful. But I had never before experienced a film that tackled difficult themes the way that Princess Mononoke did.

The film garnered a great deal of praise across the world, not just for the beauty and excellence of the film itself, but also because of the themes that it tackled and the dignified way in which it approached them. Modern anxieties surrounding the destruction of the natural environment for the sake of human progress and expansion form the core theme of the film, yet the film refrains from being preachy or wholly one-sided. The stance that the film takes reflects the idea that the conflict between the human world and the natural world can no longer be integrated as one, but the hope remains that perhaps humanity can at least learn to live with and regain respect for nature.

Set in 16th century Japan, the film concerns a boy named Ashitaka who sets out to seek a way to end a curse put upon him by a boar god. He travels westwards to a settlement called Irontown, along the way hearing of the Great Forest Spirit and of a girl who supposedly lives among a wolf clan. The main conflict of the film arises from the desire of several human characters to ‘reclaim’ natural land in order to produce the iron that Irontown is named for, while the spirits of the forest actively defend against and sometimes even attack the encroaching human presence.

If I’m being completely honest, then I should admit that this concept is far from new, and the characters themselves are likable and interesting, most are (with the exception of San, the human girl who lives among the wolves) in no way iconic. Plenty have films, music, and works of literature have tackled the theme of humans vs. nature, and Beasts of the Southern Wild was unique in the way in which it represented its human characters. Instead of a cross-section of ‘typical’ people, the film focused on the lives of an ensemble of people from a close-knit outsider culture whose relationship with nature simultaneously mirrors and yet completely diverges from our own. In Princess Mononoke, it is the representation of nature that is really standout. Humanity as a whole is the outsider here, looking inwards towards a natural world which it no longer fully understands or appreciates.

Nothing suggests that the natural world has diminished in power or importance (most evidently shown with the physically and mystically powerful Great Forest Spirit, whose enormous size combined with the ability to both take and grant life is surely symbolic of concept of nature as a whole), and despite the negative effects that human interference has caused, the climax of the film hints at renewal. Nature is not static, but a living, developing thing; just as the forest in Princess Mononoke slowly begins to regrow after being all but destroyed in the human/nature conflict, nature is perfectly capable of adapting and recreating itself to different environments and situations.

‘Nightwalker’ – the Great Forest Spirit’s appearance changes from day to night and back.

The elements of mysticism and spiritualism that are inherent in the film contribute to the sense of surreal otherness that defines nature in this film. In a modern world in which nature is often sidelined, it is not difficult to understand the film’s characterisation of nature as something essential to human life, and yet something that humanity has become increasingly detached and alienated from. The forest is a strange place, where humans fear to tread, and yet it is also beautiful. It is not so different in that respect from the kind of fairytale forests of Western children’s literature, where the natural world so often is a place of danger/fear and life/peace. To return to N. Lloyd’s article on the representation of the natural world in Snow White, the forest into which the princess if forced to flee is at first terrifying and unnatural, an uncanny mutation of human eyes, faces and hands that are anthropomorphised onto shadowy trees. Yet, this fear changes to happiness when Snow White notices the living creatures of the forest gathered around her.

Kodama/Tree Spirits

In the ancient forests of Princess Mononoke, the creatures that we encounter are not always of the mortal kind. The Tree Spirits (or Kodama) are exactly what their name implies, and their presence in the forest is undisputable. The humans that encounter them are unnerved by them, and yet they see them as clearly as they see the forest itself. They are symbolic of the nature of the very trees from which they originate, rejecting the notion that trees are inherently passive by clearly expressing the active soul that each tree apparently possess. They do not communicate verbally with humanity – they may even lack the ability – but their very presence is enough to convince the characters within the film, and perhaps even the audience as well, that nature is a LIVING entity. The small and quaint nature of the Kodama perhaps reinforces the common trope that nature is at least somewhat defenceless or weak, but they number a great many and their return at the end of the film is representative of the triumph of the spirit of nature, even in its weakest and most unassuming form, over the mistakes that humanity has made in the past.