Feminist Nature

I will admit that I traveled back and forth between the syllabus and the Welling reading many times before convincing myself that this was the correct assignment. I could not figure out how "ecoporn" could possibly relate back to the feminist criticisms we have dealt with in our previous classes. "Porn"...maybe, but "eco" as in ecology, as in nature...in no way was my brain taking this all in. However, a couple pages in and Welling is reading my mind and addresses my (clear) points of confusion, "...ecopornography concentrates on a certain type of image in which humans are for the most part conspicuously absent, I will not be dealing with representations of "zoosexuality", or with pornography featuring human sexual contacts with plants or inorganic matter." (56) I can think a little clearer now.

"Ecopornography is a type of contemporary visual discourse made up of highly idealized, anthropomorized views of landscapes and nonhuman animals." (Welling, 57) Ecoporn displays nature in a dramatized way, similar to pornography, the audience becomes captivated by idealized images that seem "natural" but are in fact staged. It would be like showing up to an big event and living in the moment of the finished project, you have an appreciation for the decor and the music, food and live band. This differs from a viewpoint of considering, or rather viewing, all the planning and chaos that occurred in order to set this perfect scene-- when we take the whole picture into account, it doesn't seem so "perfect" anymore. We see this in images of animals, as they "work to conceal both the material circumstances of their creation by humans and whatever impact humans may have had on the landforms and animals they depict." (Welling, 57)

Welling puts this theory into play with the Florida Panther. Floridians have this image of the Florida Panther, for instance, even my high school mascot portrayed this fierce yet poised creature on every gymnasium wall. The images we are seeing, not only in my high school, but on license plates, websites and television the Panthers we see do not appear to be "chased, treed, shot with tranquilizer darts, and hoisted to the ground...it is the noble, consummately wild predator at rest, gazing fearlessly...that is generally obtained using tame panthers in controlled settings." (63) They rather represent this endangered predator, indigenous to our state, that we much commemorate. When watching Discovery Channel's Shark Week or a Safari special, the audience craves to see the ferocious shark bite, the males hunt and mate with their female counterparts and the females breed and bear their children. It represents a "nature" that we have become accustomed to, and for that, we become blindsided by this "pornographic" representation. No, we aren't "getting off" by watching ecoporn but we are drawn to the power relationship it stages (Welling, 67)

Struggling to connect this to our prior feminist readings, relating ecoporn to a feminist paradigm it is important to note that "its rhetorical focus is less on nonhuman subjects...that it is on Man's pleasure, Man's power, Man's control." (Welling, 66) There is a false agency created in the way that nature is put under controlled variables to help it appear more beautiful, almost unrealistic. The number of times I have found a photo of a beautiful, undisturbed photo of nature is almost similar to the photos of computerized/airbrushed models I see in magazines, TV or on the web. In both scenarios you are fantasizing about a person or place that is not accurately represented. The feminist visual is often falsified and I believe Welling paints this image to life with the abstract, or perhaps, not so abstract concept of nature.

-Alexandra Weinstock

Welling, Bart H. “Ecoporn: On the Limits of Visualizing the Nonhuman.” Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature. Ed. Sidney Dobrin and Sean Morey. Albany: State U of New York P, 2009. 53-77.