S8E8: Film and TV with Lynda Korimboccus and Ankita Rathour

In this episode Ankita Rathour and Lynda Korimboccus join Claudia to discuss the interconnections of film, tv, and animals. Together they touch on everything from the Peppa Pig paradox in children’s media to the shifting role of animals in Hindi cinema, nationalism and caste politics. 

Date Recorded: 2 May 2025 

Featured: 

• The Subaltern Gazes: Commentary on Amit Masurkar's Sherni by Ankita Rathour.
• Pig-ignorant: The Peppa Pig Paradox. Investigating Contradictory Childhood Consumption by Lynda M Korimboccus
• Animal representation on UK children’s television by Lynda M Korimboccus
• Can the Subaltern Speak by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
• From Symbolic to Agential: The Evolution of Natural Representation in Indian Eco-Sensitive Filmsby Rakesh Kumar Pankaj and Dibyakusum Ray
• The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slaveryby Spiegel, Marjorie
• Human supremacism: why are animal rights activists still the “orphans of the left”?by Will Kymlicka
• When different is ambivalence: Strategic ignorance about meat consumptionby Marleen C. Onwezen and Cor N. van der Weele
• Humane Jobs: A Political Economic Vision for Interspecies Solidarity and Human–Animal Wellbeing by Kendra Coulter 
• Advertising oppression: the reproduction of anthroparchy in UK children's and" family" television by Kate F. Stewart and Matthew Cole
• Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell.
• Mother Cow, Mother India by Yamini Narayanan
• The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J Adams
• The Desi Gaze, a podcast by Anki

We have a range of book titles to give away. To be entered into the draw share your favourite episode of The Animal Turn via social media and tag us. Competition ends on the 31st of December. 

Nature Disturbed
Mother Nature is one weird lady

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Modern Language, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, School of Literature, Media, & Commun

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Pollination Project
The Pollination Project empowers volunteers across by providing the funding they need.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 30:16 [Ad] Nature Disturbed
• 31:04 (Cont.) S8E8: Film and TV with Lynda Korimboccus and Ankita Rathour

Transcript

Lynda Korimboccus : 0:50

This is another I roll podcast. And and that is something I have been interested in. If this if this makes sense, that there is definitely a different arc when you look at Hindi cinema on how animals have been represented. But if post-90s you see, um, that is my concern too, that it it sometimes you will see in films either they're at uh you know very much linked to the human and very much so whatever the human wants to do and think the animals are kind of speaking for them, but there have been anti-colonial resistance through animals. So I see this very complex kind of depiction of the animal reality in the Indian cinema.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:40

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Animal Turn. This is season eight, where we're focused on animals and media. And in today's episode, we're going to be speaking about a medium that's come up throughout the season, and that is film and television. It's been interesting going from the kind of theoretical concepts that we started the season with to now focusing on specific mediums and some of the pressures and challenges that they raise. And of course, things like representation have come up throughout, you know, whether we're talking about uh film or games, you know, representation is kind of always there, or social media. But we've also been speaking, I think, a little bit about the material uh impacts that these different mediums have for animals. And today's episode is no different. Two guests join me who have expertise in thinking about different films. And Kita Ratho is a Marion Britton postdoctoral fellow in the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech University. She received her PhD in English from Louisiana State University in 2023. As a scholar, she is deeply invested in exploring Hindi cinema, primarily Bollywood, and the violence in post-colonial spaces. She was a Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, and her academic and popular articles have been published in Media Watch, ESign India, Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, as well as Feminism in India. And if you are interested in Hindi film and Bollywood, she also has a podcast called The Desi Gaze Podcast. As you'll see from this episode, her knowledge is absolutely extensive. I think we have a tendency of focusing primarily on Western media when we have these conversations. And it's easy to forget that there are massive uh industries outside of Hollywood, right? Huge, massive industries that have impacts on the ways in which people see and understand and comprehend human and all animal relations. And Nikita gives us some really interesting insights both into the industry of Bollywood as well as into some of the representations and material impacts for animals that are involved in it. Then Linda Korambokis also joins us today. She's a passionate advocate for equity and justice, as well as a lecturer in sociology and a program tutor for the Scottish Wider Access Program in Social Sciences at the West Lothian College, where she's worked for 15 years. She's an associate fellow of Higher Education Academy, as well as an independent scholar in the field of critical animal studies. She's currently a PhD sociology candidate who is researching the experiences of vegan children in the education system with a view of making recommendations to expand its inclusivity. Linda also writes for Phornalytics and is an editor-in-chief of the Student Journal for Vegan Sociology. The reason that Linda primarily joins us today is she's written about media directed at children. And this is something that also come up, I think, a bit in the season is it's not only a matter of thinking about the medium that is produced, you know, what the output is, but who is consuming the media, who is being directed at, who is consuming it, and what messages do they take from that. And you might have heard of the pepper pig paradox before. Well, that's Linda's very catchy phrase. And we get a bit into what that means in today's episode, the ways in which uh, you know, children's, I suppose, behaviors align or misalign with the types of content that they're viewing. It's a really interesting conversation. So we go from everything from children's media to Bollywood to thinking generally about the impact of film and TV on animals. It's wide-ranging, but super interesting, and I hope you enjoy. As always, I want to say thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics Apple for sponsoring this podcast. Thank you also to Natalie Tobias and Ellen for their project that's focused on animals and media and for sponsoring this season to finding that they got from the Pollination Project, as well as a variety of different departments at Georgia Tech University. Just a reminder to please leave a review wherever you listen. This is super, super helpful. And if you're looking for another way to support us, you can also check out our merch store where we've got beautiful designs by Rebecca. Um we've also got some stuff with just the straight-up logo as well as the bat hanging upside down. Uh, there are t-shirts, uh my favorite, my favorite sweater in there. It's like this oversized sweater with just the big logo of the animal toe on the back, and I wear it everywhere. Uh okay, enough of the rambling. Here we go. Let's learn about TV, home, and animals. Thank you both of you for joining me on the show today. As you know, we're doing a season looking at animals and media. And without fail, all of the guests I've spoken to have at some point made reference to films and TV because I think it's so prevalent in our lives. So I think focusing on Mac for today's episode with the two of you is going to be wonderful. But let's start with learning a little bit about both of you. So uh, Linda, let's let's start with you. Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and uh how you came to be interested in doing research on animals and media?

Lynda Korimboccus : 7:04

Sure, yeah. Um uh I have been studying social science generally since um I turned 25-ish from becoming vegan literally overnight and wanting to know why it was that when I gave everybody the information that I suddenly had become privy to, they did not go vegan. So I thought, well, they just thought it was a bit wacky, you know. I think they felt that anyway, but still that didn't help. So then I set out on a journey of psychology, first of all, didn't answer the question, social psychology into sociology, which I've come back to now, through politics, a bit of economics, some philosophy. And now I'm doing my PhD in sociology, investigating the lived experiences of young vegan children in Scotland, what that's like for them, which includes a lot of the kind of media that they're presented with in school, just regular television in any case. Um, and and since all this study, I've also had a daughter who's now 11, and she's been, I think, the main prompt for me studying this in particular from some experiences that we had in a kind of mum and daughter going to the theatre kind of a situation. So I can tell you more about that just now if you like, or after it's up to you.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 8:22

But well, I think you wrote a little bit about this going to the theatre with your with your daughter, right? It was a peppa pig experience of sorts.

Lynda Korimboccus : 8:32

I did. Yeah, I was that's I was doing my master's in anthrozoology at that point, and uh we were talking about uh how animals are represented. Brilliant course. Um and we were at a theatre show, we'd gone for a bite to eat first, and there was this little girl sitting on ever forgetter, and she had all her stuff on your peppa pig clips and a little bag and t-shirt and everything, and she was eating a ham sandwich, and I remember thinking I mean that's really obviously wrong to me in terms of the the the cognitive dissonance of it, it's not quite right. But I'd never seen it laid out quite as as um obviously as that in front right in front of me going to a pipe a pig thing. When we got into the theatre, you could order a little lunchbox for the kids, one had a cheese sandwich in it, and the other had a ham sandwich in it. That was your choice. So first of all, there was nothing vegan, but which is not unusual. But second of all, it was actually ham. And I thought people aren't making this connection, which I knew about all animals really, but specifically for that species, I thought that's very interesting. All these kids who love Pepper like actually wouldn't miss an episode and yet might even be sitting watching an episode having a bacon sandwich or something. So that prompted that um I mean, I don't know how much uh I d I don't think I came up with anything new, but it's certainly the first time that I had thought about a species-specific thing.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 10:03

I think what's interesting about your story is that a lot of guests on the show have, you know, mentioned how the pets and the animals in their lives have prompted them to think about animals and animal studies in deeper ways, right? Like so I Linus is my dog, and there's a lot about having him in my life that's made me think about the power dynamics involved in pet keeping, for example. You know, that's made me ask questions about, I think, structures I might have taken for granted previously or thought of as being somewhat benign. Or um, but what's interesting about your story is that it's the presence of children that have also raised some of these questions and the contradictions. Uh and I've worked with uh kids as well in a in a kindergarten and um in a in an English school in South Korea. And I mean, animals are just omnipresent in in children's education, right? Even when it comes to teaching them about specific days, you could think about Thanksgiving in the US. Uh, just the the prevalence of animals in communication to animals is just abundant in their learning, in their teaching, in their consumption. So I think this is really important. And we're going to come back to Pepper Pig because there really is a phenomenon with Pepper Pig. But before we get too carried away, and Kita, tell us a little bit about uh about yourself and and your interests in animals and film.

Ankita Rathour : 11:23

So currently I'm a postdoc fellow at Georgia Tech, uh Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and uh where I teach a lot of themed English courses, but I generally like to theme it around colonialism and post-colonialism. So when it comes to animals, um, let me start with a story. So I grew up with animals, you know. So I grew up in the eastern region of India, Bihar, one of the richest regions pre-colonially, post-colonially, not so. So I had lots of pets around me, but I also remember I was very afraid of dogs. And that has something which has stayed with me. And then I still when I started my education, when I started learning more about colonialism, I realized how uh dogs were very much a part of the British colonial system and very much a part of a tool to, you know, scare the natives. And um, I remember reading George Orwell a lot, and uh, so my love for animals or getting intrigued about them began with his short story, Shooting an Elephant, something I teach too. And it really struck out to me that how he uses uh this story where he was forced to kill an elephant to really critique the empire. So then I got very much interested into this connection with animals and empire and colonialism.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 12:50

And it was materially, right? You were like, animals, colonial empire, no more.

Ankita Rathour : 12:55

What is happening around me? Exactly. Like, you know, and I and I really uh got very intrigued. I was like, what is happening? And you know, it's it's a it takes a simple search to tell you that how the dehumanization by any empire is very much rooted in animality and and in like the animalistic terms, right? Like Indians and dogs not allowed, okay. And uh right now the far-right Indian government is kind of rehashing it by saying Muslims and uh dogs not allowed. So I have always been intrigued by the political implications and the capitalist implications on how what happens to animals within this not only a post-colonial setting, but also complicating that post-colonial setting. I come from a country where cows are sacred, right? But you will find beef, right, in northeast regions or southern regions. And then that image of cow has been really used to uh, you know, uh really punch down on minorities. So I've been very interested by all of these factors. But when it comes to my work, Claudia, you would this is a funny story. Um, I remember when I came to US, I will always have these images of a film that I watched while growing up. I I forgot the name. All I remember that there was this group of rich people who had hunted a pig to roast. Um, but because they're drinking and they're living on an indigenous land, they accidentally cook an indigenous man himself. And that was about this whole link of cannibalism, but also like, you know, being on the indigenous land has kind of haunted me, to be very honest. But I forgot the name of the movie. I would remember bits and pieces, and I was like, okay, this is haunting me. I really need to go back to that. Well, lo and behold, I recently remembered the name of the film, and I run a Bollywood or a film podcast, which is called The Day Sea Gaze, and I talk about that film in my very recent episode. So that kind of, so I would say my work with animals is quite recent. This is something I have done this year, and then I wrote about a Bollywood Hindi film of 2011 called Tigris Shirni, where which kind of explores this triad of femininity, nature, and animal uh population in an indigenous land. And since then I have been very interested in figuring out this what is happening with the representation of animal in Hindi cinema and how it is shifting, if it is shifting. But what kind of consumption issues are emerging from those films when you look at that 1994 film about uh critiquing uh you know elites and critiquing the native elite, for example, and how they consume the indigenous land and how they consume the animals without much thinking. So I think uh I will stop here because you can, you know, I can keep talking about that, but that has uh been my uh interest lately.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 16:04

No, I mean it's it's it's great to have you both on the show because I think we're so used to thinking about you know US media. And I think that's with good reason. Uh US media does uh permeate. I mean, I'm from Johannesburg, South Africa, and I could tell you more about US films and media than I can South Africa film, South African film and media, even though it's a it's a burgeoning and growing uh industry. But Bollywood is, I mean, Bollywood is its own massive, massive enterprise, right? Like Bollywood is the the the I mean, I think Asian production in general has exploded in recent times. A lot of there's a lot of conversation about what's happening with South Korea, um, K-pop, of course, in terms of music, but also in terms of soap opera and daytime TV. Um what and maybe we can kind of start getting a little bit into thinking now about film and and TV in general and why it's important when we think about animals. But while we're sitting here talking about Bollywood, why do you think it's important for people to just be aware of, I guess, the differences between Bollywood and Hollywood? Like, why is this something? I mean, I think it's significant because it's a massive industry and loads of people consume it. But, you know, what are some of the core differences or or hallmarks that makes Bollywood Bollywood?

Ankita Rathour : 18:02

That's a great question, and I'm so glad you asked. So, first of all, Bollywood is the one of the many film industries in India, core difference. It's a Hindi language film industry, and it's situated in the Western state of Maharashtra. We have other film industries. So, one of the things people should know that when we talk about really popular Bollywood film, we are talking about a very particular language higimony, right? It's it's in Hindi. There are other regional films who have been actually equally or far more better than Bollywood, but Bollywood has such an impact or such a control, not only on cultural consciousness or culture making, but literally on what kind of films get produced and how. So that is one difference. That is not to say that Bollywood or Hindi film is to be criticized, because it is the, you know, one of the only film industries which was imagined and flourished during active colonialism. And uh and just for that fact, uh, I have been obsessed with studying this film industry. What? What are you telling me? Because Britishers would, you know, colonizers would always control what kind of films you can make and what kind of topics you can talk about. Hence, there were many mythological films that began, right? You cannot criticize the empire. But then it has something which has survived that onslaught. And one of the key differences is just in aesthetics, right? So whenever I mention Bollywood to, let's say, my American students, right? And they're like, oh, it's all about dancing. And I'm like, uh, not really. There are big budget movies which do a lot of dancing, and dancing is different. You or you will also have Bollywood films where just community comes together and dances. They're not big budget, but they show the celebration of the working class, the masses coming together. And then it's like it's a lot of colors. I was like, well, I can think of a lot of colorless Bollywood movies, which is literally just black and white. So one of the key differences is aesthetic. And what does that mean? That Hindi film industry is very much rooted in its theater form. That means Parsi theater, Marathi theater. So, what does that mean? That we are something very much centered on affective realism than cognitive realism. So, for example, in Hollywood, you know, as a viewer, you are the meaning maker. But you can also understand when colonialism ended, it was also, you know, films began a tool of nation shaping. Like, wow, we are independent now, and let's make movies which really show our struggles. So the 50s and 60s, and they were very important decades for Hindi cinema. And hence Hindi cinema has been very popular in the Soviet Union, for example, during that time. There was a direct correlation of uh socialist cinemas. Uh, but lo and behold, uh, in 1991, one of the differences is to understand this model of industry. Soviet Union collapses, India is looking for newer markets, and who enters drum rolls, United States. We start uh getting and receiving all of this American culture. So, Claudia, I really felt what you said that sometimes I would know so much more about Hollywood cinema than my own Bollywood cinema. And it is very interesting because when it came, it was also when I was growing up, it was like, okay, this is very exotic. US films were very exotic for me. So I was like, wow, this is interesting. But it also kind of really changed our own perception. And that is the post-colonial theory of like how you can internalize this imperialistic views about yourself. So we were not very consciously consuming this cinema and it changed the industry after that. So I think those are the major differences. That is to say, for example, when it comes to animals in Bollywood, that has been always been there. Right? Always been there. Like animals were such an important part of just nation making, because what we also wanted to show is that nature and animals and humans are interlinked. We are not separate, right? And uh and you will see this still happening, being rehashed in what they call pan-Indian uh movies like RRR. There is a scene where all the tigers and all the animals are coming out with the central character to attack on the uh, you know, the officers of the British Empire. So that's that that is something I would like to point out that we have, when you talk about Hindi cinema, we have we have really been interconnected with this nature animal thing. So when people say, Oh, I see a lot of films now talking about animals, I'm like, really? I'm like, there are many films before that. Uh there have been dogs, there have been snakes, there have been everything. And and that, and that is why also I got interested in this topic, because what is more lovely than going back to your cultural products like Hindi cinema and looking into that?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 23:00

What I think is interesting here though is, you know, even if I think, let's say, of British or US film industries, or even, you know, I almost think you could think of any film industry, the connectivity between nationhood and film is is high. Um, and also the connections between animals and nationhood are high. Uh, regardless of, I think many cultures and many nations have used animals in a variety of ways to kind of show themselves um off. And of course, this is very pronounced in India, as you mentioned now, with regards to cows and uh and and questions with regards to the Hindu state and the politics with regards to that. Um, okay, really fascinating and interesting. So, but I I hear you, and it is important to keep in mind that there are these different uh regional differences. And I think when we think about this, uh it's important to hold that. But then you've got other shows like Pepper Pig, which uh, I mean, Linda, when I when I read your paper and it said that it had been translated into I don't know how many languages and is a showing in 180 countries in the world, which is, I mean, it's it's it's a sensation. Like I really, I gotta say, I like I really don't like Pepper Pig. Like the the level, the level of language alone. I'm like, can't just use four sentences. I'm not a mom, I'm not a, but I'm like, oh. But you don't have to be stalidity. Oh my god, it's really um like when I scratch my eyeballs out a little. But clearly the kids are seeing something. Clearly, the the kids are this is doing something, not just for the parents, but for the kids. And this is a global phenomenon that seems to be speaking across cultures, across geographies. So um, yeah, what is this pepper pig phenomenon? And then uh, and then yeah, let's go from there.

Lynda Korimboccus : 24:47

Just briefly talking about um film culture there. I mean, I'm I'm in Scotland, and Scotland uh has a uh quite a unique place within the United Kingdom um of being culturally incredibly specific. Um our national animal is a unicorn. I love that so much. I love that. Like, what's the history of that? How did how did Scotland decide to have its national? Yeah, I really need to know that more than I actually do. So that's that's my job when I got off off uh off the call today. Um I think it's wonderful, it says a lot about us, I think. Um Peppa Pig is a phenomenon. I think there's another show that's kind of creeping up into popularity called Bluey, um, which is I think New Zealand or Australian. Um I'm hoping that catches on more because it's a much preferable it's not even remotely irritating, it's like but it's a family of dogs. So the the the point I suppose that I was trying to make in in my paper is still how can children be so invested in in a in a albeit anthropomorphic creature, um yet still not see those connections. We don't have um certainly British culture, I don't even really know what that means. Um you know, my my my my dad came from Mauritius and that was colonized as well, and that's how he ended up here because it was a big move to bring everybody here to do nursery and whatnot. Complex history. But in Scotland, I think, um where was I gonna go with that? Uh yeah, we don't have our own uh I mean we have a couple of different shows, but there's nothing specifically Scottish for kids as such. So uh I did another paper about animal representation in the media looking more widely at is it just Peppa or are there others? But yeah, Peppa's phenomenal. Kids are are obsessed with her despite the irritation, even the the voice plus I'm sorry for the lady that does the voice. I mean it's I'm sure she's very nice, but the even the voice is a bit annoying, her attitude is terrible, she's terrible big sister to her little brother, all that kind of stuff. But then that's kids, right? So I feel there must be some connection that kids make with this kind of oh well here's the world, and it's a little bit it's all very simplified, it's all very straightforward. Um I'm not I'm not sure why it's had why that show in particular and the pig in particular, when kids would say, if you asked them, they like cats and dogs better, you know, because they recognise those as so-called pets. Um and yet there's this little pig and very simply drawn pig at that, it's not even a complex um illustration, you know. The the animation is really quite um I'm sure it takes lots to do, but it's not comp it's you know, we're not talking Hollywood uh graphics here, so um she's captured the imagination of everyone. Um but as I was looking through, um, so between that study and also the other study, I watched 66 and a half hours of children's television, which was an eye-opener, I have to say, and Peppa's there. She's every single morning without fail. And the and also I think partly it's because she's available on the free-to-view channels here. You don't have to have Sky TV or Virgin Media or any of these other kind of packages in order to watch her. So there's an element of that, I think, in that she's accessible to everyone.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 28:28

You maybe just think now also about this idea of a shared reality and something I've been thinking increasingly about with regards to you know streaming services, where I think a lot of us are consuming sometimes the same films but at different times. And this is very different to when I grew up, right? There was the Sunday night movie, everyone would watch the Sunday night movie and we would connect with it at school on on a Monday, or we would all be watching the same.

Lynda Korimboccus : 28:53

Yeah, I think I think that's the thing. We used to have children's hour here, you know, it was like one hour of one day of the week. Yeah. And everyone watched it because that was the only time to see stuff like that. And and you can stream Peppa, you can stream Peppa Pig.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 29:07

I don't know. In some ways, I feel like kids have more of a shared reality with the stuff they consume than a lot of adults do. Like a lot of kids are able to talk across one another and even across, let's say, cultural language barriers because they seem to consume the same they've got that in common. Exactly. And um whereas I don't know, I I don't I don't think many adults have that same kind of shared reality or time.

Lynda Korimboccus : 30:11

I think it gets lost now because uh the older you get and the older kids get as well by high school, they're all watching various different things. But certainly in primary there's still that kind of, you know, um first of all, they're maybe not able to stream things they're like four or five years old, right? So although I don't know, my daughter's thumbs can work miracles on various gadgets, but uh yeah, that's still something that and by wearing this stuff, you know, there's so much um merchandise, uh whether it's bags or whatever, they they already know that they the other person is familiar with it. I I'm not sure there's any child in certainly the UK anyway that would know where Pepper Pig was.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 30:51

You mentioned this idea of pig ignorance in that same paper as well. Um so so you speak about, you know, the children are consuming, and arguably the parents are are consuming as well, two types of pigs in this story. One, the representation of Peppa the Pig, this anthropomorphic pink girly pig that uh, you know, is difficult. And then you've also got children consuming literal pigs in the form of ham, etc. And you were building on this idea of the meat paradox, but now looking at the pepper pig paradox, you loving one pig and eating another. Um, but in this kind of conversation, you speak about pig ignorance as one of the key uh mechanisms that's driving this paradox. Could you explain that a little bit?

Lynda Korimboccus : 31:38

Um I do like a play on words, so I couldn't help myself with that. And the alliteration was just too much to but yeah, um I mean a lot of it is about language, and although although she's anthropomorphic, there are elements even in the programme of um pigishness. So they do have little curly tails and they do poink and or noises to that effect. Um so there's there's enough piggishness in there rather than humanness that still defines. Her and her family as a pig, all the other, all the friends you have are none of them are human. They're all different species of animal. So um I find it really fascinating. And this the the idea as well that we can separate and it is built on the meat paradox, this idea we can separate those animals are for eating, and those are for entertainment, and those ones are for pets, and these ones are for this is for and that for this and that. Um but in this particular case, and also with lambs, which I go uh I mentioned a little, um, you know, we've just had Easter time, there's lambs bouncing about the fields here, it's all very lovely. People stop or they take their kids to go feed the lambs, and then Sunday roast on Easter Sunday is inevitably in the UK anyway, a roast lamb. I think I mean that one's it's not even called something different, at least in for for for pig flesh, we have different versions of that bacon ham whatever, but but we still call lambs lambs. So there's not even that disconnect that you could argue is a language-based thing. So but but pigs in particular, and I mentioned this um and that's one of the reasons I used pig ignorant, is that pigs are often used um from a language perspective as as a negative, you know. So people will talk about you being pig ignored or stop being such a pig if someone's eating a lot or something like that, you know, those kinds of um connotations and associations. So we don't see pigs in our culture as anything other than edible, and yet there's this pig top of the top of the list in most people's favourite cartoon characters when they're little. It's terrifying, fascinating um at the same time. Um, but making those connections, um there's been a recent paper, I haven't uh read it, it's an entirety yet, um, by a psychologist talking about how younger kids that's the time to kind of try and address cognitive dissonance before it's even really allowed to kind of start. Because kids kids love animals, or they'll say they love animals, even if they don't live with any or they don't see them in real life. They've got there's some kind of affinity with the innocence behind animal life or something where uh it's very unlike just look the I did a a short study which I haven't published, looking at the the the books in a local library as well. Look at I mean I was thousands of kids' books I went through and I was looking at how many have uh animals as their main character, are they anthropomorphized or not? And and again, it was the majority of these books have animal characters, and kids find their draw with that a lot of the stories at school, it's the same. Um very seldom are they just in a book as a as a as a pet, and I I hate that word, but um most of the time children's TV is the same with the other study I did about children's television programmes. Fifty-one percent of the programmes had animals as main or lead characters, so it's it's everywhere around them, and it's not and often these key uh species are non-domesticated species too. So um Alvin and the chipmunks is big um in the States also here. You know, who has a chipmunk? Most people don't, um but there's some kind of connection there though, nonetheless, because of the way that they're represented. So um I do find it fascinating that that those connections aren't made. But then I I kind of conclude that it comes down to willful ignorance ultimately, um this idea that that in order to address that you would then be required possibly or likely to make have to make changes to as a parent to your life because your child suddenly makes the connection.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 36:07

Yeah, I think you mentioned this idea of strategic ignorance, which I thought was quite helpful. You pointed to another paper where they spoke about uh it's not a matter of people being unaware of these paradoxes, uh, but more a matter of people choosing, oftentimes choosing to uh choosing to ignore, um, which is quite a I mean, that's that's a little bit of a different sentiment. Because I think often when we talk about animals and media, especially when it comes to things like thinking about animal rights, etc., a lot of people would say, well, it's just a matter of education. We just need to educate. But clearly when you look here, you're seeing a difference. Um, yeah, it's it's interesting that there's it's not just a matter of telling people that this paradox exists. There's there's something else going on here. And and it's interesting what you said about getting to children before these ideas have cemented, but but it seems that they're cemented very young with kids. I mean, you talk to kids who are four years old already, and things are already pretty locked in place.

Lynda Korimboccus : 37:10

They are. I I mean it's difficult because at the at the point where you would maybe need to capture the ideas and mold them a little more to make them more realistic. Um, they're not really in the public domain, the kids at that point. I'm sure there's some ethics involved in this too. But yeah, kids are still but uh again, they're coming from their you know, parents' generations, grandparents. Um I I mentioned in the paper as well, I remember being at my gran's house, and my gran used to like to go up to the butchers of a morning. That's when everybody shopped every day because people didn't have fridges, and she would have um potted meat or or tongue. And I remember having a slice, slice of tongue, and she had some salad around it, and I was going, why is it called tongue, Gran? And she says, Oh, because it's a tongue in. She knew what it was, it's not even pretending to be anything else. It even looked like a large piece of a tongue. And I remember thinking, Oh.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 38:08

And then goose down, actually. I remember because you know, everyone speaks about goose down in their clothing and having this realization, oh wait, that's goose down is actual goose. So somehow we are able to have this kind of separation of ideas. And Keeta, do you see this type of cognitive dissonance happening in the films that you're interested in?

Ankita Rathour : 38:28

Oh, absolutely. And I was actually gonna will start with saying that there is a complete Hindi translation of Peppa Pig in India, by the way. Uh, very famous. Uh, but but so many things that just came to my mind listening to Linda, because I I immediately went to Animal Farm again, George Orville. I'm I'm very sorry in thinking about pigs. But I'm I was very intrigued what Linda you said about like there are hierarchies within the animal species that we like to talk about, right? And that's why I have been thinking a lot about like, for example, peppa pig is so popular in India, but we will be using pig, which are consumed in Muslim cultures, to kind of encourage Islamophobia. You see what I mean? So these are the contradictions I have been very generally interested in. Actually, when it came to films, um, maybe I can here read the code, Claudia, and I will I will link what I'm trying to say after this quote. And this comes uh from a paper that I was recently reading from Symbolic to Agential, the evolution of natural representation in Indian eco-sensitive films. So majorly talks about um nature, animal, uh, and women. But uh the quote says that as it has been copiously argued, the very existence of Indian cinema is intricately related to its national political backdrop, which became even more apparent in the general filmic sentiment of the early 90s, which saw the emergence of the feel-good, all happy in the end, tender love stories with lots of songs and dances, family values, and their palpable, if not entirely self-evident, investment in our culture. The 1990s is the defining moment in the history of Indian cinema that emerged in collusion to the neoliberal bent of the Indian economy, transcending its state-controlled socialistic space and embracing market-oriented capitalist norms that, apart from generating deeper social layers and economic deprivation, cast a deep effect on national forestry and ecology, the natural resources of India around this time started to be valued for a range of services they can provide to the hydrological cycle, to soil systems, biological diversity, and so on. And it was very interesting when I read this quote, and I was immediately reminded of the shift in animal representation we have seen all across, let's say, Hindi cinema. So, earlier movies, there is a movie called Um Hakimir Sati, which loosely translated will be Elephant My Friend, or Teri Meherbania, which is about this relationship between a dog and a guy. And in um, but what I noticed that here, the animals, elephant and a dog, are very much in service of the human, right? Like uh you are somebody who is representing our anthropic features to the audience. And then you see, so I've been very interested in just the question of subalternity if I talk post-colonially, is like who speaks for these animals? And what does it even mean to represent animal agency, right? And then that's why the paper I wrote uh on Tigris 2011, I actually argue that I don't, yeah, the subaltern cannot speak. Thank you, Gaitri Spivak, but the subaltern can gaze. Because when you watch that movie, Tigris, you see this agency which is beyond the purview of speech. Because this the story is about this female forest officer who goes to this land and she sees a lot of coal mining happening in the area, right? That means a lot of forests are being erased, and there is this uh interesting kind of rumor that is going around that, hey, the tiger population in that forest is actually man-eating tigers, you know, there are man-eating tigresses, which is the rumor started by the government, started by the forestry agency, and she's trying to solve them. And in the movie, we see the kind of shared reality as we are talking about, or shared suffering between uh, you know, a female forest officer in a very male-oriented job, the local tiger population, and the indigenous people whose livelihoods are being erased through the forests. And that is something that is an arc that I have noticed in Indian film. So initially, animals have the service of uh the human uh signifier. And then animals who can't speak are very much like the indigenous people who can't speak for themselves. But in the movie, they can gaze. So this close-up shots just staring is something wonderfully done in the film. And now, recently, when you look at other Indian cinemas, moving beyond Hindi cinema, like Jalikatu, which is about a lot of animal agency, but it also kind of uses to book commentary or critique that, you know, that uh there is always an animal within the human. So when we say like how we give hierarchy of animals, we kind of like, okay, like, and and that is something I have been interested in if this if this makes sense, that there is definitely a different arc when you look at Hindi cinema and how animals have been represented. But if post-90s you see, um, that is my concern too, that it it sometimes you will see in films either they're at uh you know, very much linked to the human and very much so whatever the human wants to do and think, the animals are kind of speaking for them, but there have been anti-colonial resistance through animals. So I see this very complex um kind of depiction of the animal reality in the Indian cinema.

Lynda Korimboccus : 44:33

It is complex. It's interesting that you bring in capitalism there ultimately because uh much of I mean, I'm a sociologist, can't help it anyway, but um the capitalist um uh will, I suppose, is so responsible for a lot of how we're how this stuff is maintained, I think. So it doesn't benefit the capitalist system for us all to go vegan, for example, until the green pound is well established. And for a while there actually in the UK was doing pretty well and there was vegan stuff everywhere and it's kind of waned a little again. Um and that was following a couple of documentaries where people actually couldn't really avoid it, and many people made a shift, but again, the often the mistake is not seeing the connections. I mean, you mention about women and you mention um colonialism, any kind of oppression really. Um these things are one in the same thing. The system that creates this oppression is the same system. Um Marjorie Spiegel did some great work um years ago, you know, with the the dreaded comparison, just saying these are these are the same. What we see happening around the world to peoples who are already marginalized, it's the same. But women do make up the majority of humans, not uh human animals in our country, and yet it's still marginalized oppressed exploited, right? So if if we can't even stop our own kind from experiencing this, how do we get to a system we at a stage where we are even going to consider non-human animals? And then and then within that you've got the hierarchy. It's probably not a bad time for my quote, if that's okay, Claudia.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 46:32

Yeah, go ahead.

Lynda Korimboccus : 46:33

So um not as extensive as yours, but I uh the the people that really um I guess so my PhD supervisor actually, Kate Stewart um and her hubby Matthew Cole, now Matthew Melsa, um have done some amazing work and they were they've been looking at uh um animal representation for a long time and they wrote the book that I was hoping to eventually write. And but I was like, yay, good. So part of a lot of their um they've they've done a lot of um great work about this. So their quote, um uh I've just it's just a literally a tiny sentence if I can find it. That that all of this stuff uh is a distraction characterizing animals in a particular way. So they they have um a great chart about how speciesism, which is ultimately the difficulty here, how it's represented, where we have some animals are visible and we see them and we care for them, we have we have uh feelings for them and emotions about them, positive ones. Some are invisible, but we would still feel that way. So for example, you know, when there's the odd story about some some random wild animal that's at at risk, suddenly everyone gets together and everyone wants to save this great ape or something that's completely out with their circle of reality, right? We would save that. The cat that gets put in the rubbish bin and ends up all over Facebook because people are horrified by the actions of that owner. Uh owner don't like that either. That's another thing we can come back to. But then there are the invisible animals, so there's the ones that we don't see just but you know, bugs and stuff, we're not going to see them so much. And then there's the ones that are in the slaughterhouses. The ones that we don't see, that we probably wouldn't want to see, that we don't have regard for uh because we don't see them as having the same value. Um, but all this stuff, uh all this other stuff about um keeping animals inner their their inner psyche, but their inner psyche in a fake way. Really, what we think we know about them isn't what we know about them. They're quote, and I link it to the the work that I did about um uh how animals are essentially like thingified, if you like. Mostly wild animals, mostly um pet animals, companion animals, whatever you want to call it. But it doesn't matter how it's characterized, it's a distraction really from the reality of that. So the quote from their 2018 paper, which is uh advertising oppression, the reproduction of anthroparchy in UK children's and family television, part of a larger collection about transpecies social justice, is that children's affective imaginations are directed towards representations and away from the real victims. So that's the quote that I picked because I think that really captures exactly what or why kids don't grow up despite this love of animals, automatically to be even vegetarian, not alone vegan.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 49:41

You know, so so it's I think that's that's really powerful because I mean, coming back to what you were saying a moment ago about uh I guess the interlinkages of oppression, right? I think with the argument you made, there's an argument I think a lot of vegans are faced is how can we be concerned with animals when we haven't dealt with the the inequalities between humans? But I think a lot of the scholarship coming forward now is saying, well, you can't, it's not a matter of just looking at one kind of oppressive system. Um, kind of animal rights, uh, to use Will Kimniker's phrasing has been the orphan on the left, where a lot of a lot of uh radical groups do tend to support other radical movements, but when it comes to things and questions of of the consumption of animals, it is something of of an orphan on the left um because of this kind of um wilful willful resistance.

Lynda Korimboccus : 50:33

Um willful Englands, right. Because actually it shouldn't be. When you look at Carol J. Adams' work about um she's she's an eco-feminist, um, lots of like vegan feminist stuff is just phenomenal because it's the same, it's it's the same gaze, talking about gaze earlier. This male gaze on the female body, whether it's a cow or a pig or a chicken or or a lamb uh a sheep or or a or a a human, it's the same seeing seeing female, and this links a lot to uh some some study on eco uh eco-philosophy, green philosophy. It's the same thing about seeing the earth, and the earth and mother nature and all this kind of femininity, and it and it's all you know, well, that's just there for our taking. Our being, you know, predominantly um pay a patriarchal capitalist society, right? Yeah. So you put all that together and and and it is interlinked, you know. We talk a lot about um intersectionality, that's the kind of word of the this the decade, if you like, but people aren't really seeing just how intertwined these things are. And if they did, they would maybe be horrified.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 51:43

I don't know how we I always I know that there's a common like phrase saying, you know, more feminists should be vegan, just because a lot of the questions with regards to the consumption of milk is a question about reproductive rights, about how female bodies are used to reproduce harm. But I think coming back to your quote there, what's also interesting is in and in doing the season, I've I've noticed it a lot, is we do tend to focus oftentimes in thinking about representation, right? Because media, the theme for this uh season is on a mediated experience, right? So how do we do, uh like Ankita, how you were mentioning, how do we do justice to the animals on the screen? Or is it just they're included on screen for our own gratification? And and I think oftentimes they are just metaphors on screen uh for a broader question with regards to, let's say, nationhood or uh damage done to earth. And you see this, and this is one of my concerns with an ecocentric frame, is you can have discussions about nature and still somehow not see animals and their individual experiences or take their experiences seriously. Um, so I do you see, Ankita, when when you look at these kinds of films and these questions about nature, using Linda's quota as a launch pad, like how much are animals' lived experiences really used to inform the representations we see?

Ankita Rathour : 53:05

That's a great question. Um, a few of the things to add there, what Linda was previously talking about. Um, when you're talking about thinkification, it immediately reminded me of Ames Sejer, who actually talks about the interlinking, the whole connection between how we perceive animals, you know, especially who we see are kind of um uh you know discardable. And it's uh it's uh interconnection with the bodies of black and brown people, right? So this thinkification that has worked for the colonized is very much the thinkification we link with the animals, right? Because that's how exactly the uh you know capitalism or capitalist imperial colonialism began. The first thing is you have to go after their livestock, right? And and it also reminds me of so much uh problematic conversation in in war-turn areas when they speak of certain humans as human animals, which has always intrigued me. I was like, what do you mean? So that is there. Definitely orientalism when it comes to representation of animals, but also representation of animals and femininity together, which kind of connects to uh uh the question Claudia asked, like the politicization of representation on screen. And that is something I still grapple with. So, for example, if I see an Indian pan-Indian movie like RRR, where animals and humans are coming together in their anti-colonial unity, and I was like, okay, great, but I need more exploration of just animals beyond that human association. And what does that mean? So definitely it becomes, it has become a vantage point when I see Indian cinema to not only talk about anti-colonialism, but also talk about just capitalist progress and growth, which automatically kind of renders animals to a very limited area. It's like, okay, that is there, how they're going to benefit us. And in both ways, I think it's kind of problematic for me because I'm also like that, and and maybe this happens with films, and maybe it's the intention of the directors that this is what I want to focus, so they have to make hard choices. I don't know. But in both ways, either you're going very anti-colonial or you're doing a very pro-capitalist representation of animals. I I always think about what will be the way to just make this as a better representation. What would be the way where maybe the audiences can maybe sit in discomfort? Sometimes I think about maybe maybe show them a whole 15-minute running of cows running amok in a field. But what does that mean? What does that do to reception? So um, and also just to complicate our discussion, because I'm such a fan of complications, I I remember when uh there was a documentary on Netflix. It was shot in India and it was about this. I'm forgetting its name right now, but uh, but I'll Google it. It was about uh this old couple in southern India and how they rear this elephant, baby elephant. They they take the baby elephant in their family and you know, really take care of it, bring it up, and this whole association with the human animal, which was very interesting because when I read about the documentary, I came to know about the controversy that the film went in, that how these main characters, the couples, were not paid by the filmmakers, and um, which immediately struck me of you know the politics of labor. But what I was also struck by, I was like, what about the labor of the elephant? You know what I mean? The elephant who's being shot in its entirety to make a documentary. What happens to that? Is that something we don't register because it is mute, it hardly talks? And and that's why I've been very interested in the kind of humanness generally. We provide within the limitation of speech that somebody speaks, hence they can represent themselves. And I was like, what if somebody represents beyond speech? Yeah.

Lynda Korimboccus : 57:13

Speaking for someone else can be problematic too because actually people who talk about, you know, we need to speak for the animals, they have no voice.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 57:20

But actually Exactly.

Lynda Korimboccus : 57:22

That's it, should we though, even? I don't know what it's like to be an elephant.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 57:27

Yeah, right.

Lynda Korimboccus : 57:28

I can imagine the only way we can imagine is through the lens of humanity and her own emotions and feelings because that's that's the best you can you can do. And I mean obviously through empathy, people do that with the best intention. But actually, I mean we we have a cat that lives in this house and uh and and other than frequently displaying his viewer end to me, um, he really just does whatever he wants. He doesn't care enough. I mean maybe does care, I don't know, get his care in a thing that cats do. Uh um I suppose but then people try to do that. There's a new um short that's gonna appear in the in the UK UK cinemas in the advertising bit about a pig called Matilda. Um it's an animated um it's a little animated short that um I think it was Surge Activism did. And it's lovely and it's what it's doing is explaining about this piglet who was born in a essentially a factory farm. Was this done by Ed Winters? Yes, yeah, it's Ed Winters, okay, yeah. It's won an award recently as well, just the other week. So he's done a lot of he's phenomenal. He's gonna this is gonna get everywhere, but people are and it and some of it's a bit uncomfortable because it's not always, you know, there's just one piglet got out, but actually, um it's all very I don't know, it's like again we're gonna get back to the fact that Focal called Oh yeah, yeah, that's right, that's terrible. And then right, back to life and on on again. Um the discomfort isn't enough speaking, even when you do it through the lens of a human voice, uh which is what people the lens of voice that doesn't work, but you know, people are trying to humanize the the non-humans in order to give humans and even more empathy towards them. That's not enough either.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 59:19

So um could this not be a time thing? I and I hear what you're saying, but it hasn't been enough. Um, you know, to to date it hasn't been enough, but perhaps there is a I mean, and maybe at societal level it hasn't, but maybe it is a it's an accumulative factor. I have to hope so.

Lynda Korimboccus : 59:38

And I think back to when I first went vegan in 1999 and how basically nobody even knew what that was. And then and I couldn't buy any ready-made food and I had to learn how to actually cook at age 25. I should have probably known before that, but you're not you're not alone with that.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 59:55

I think it's um and again, I think a lot of this comes to uh I mean what you what you both have done so well is tying together, I think, the kind of material realities that are tied to the film and TV industry, whether that's the making of the money or the selling of the merchandise or the the animals that are actually filmed, like the elephant being filmed, uh, or the gaze of the tiger or the pigs that are being consumed. Like there are real animals' lives implicated when we're talking about film and TV. So often, uh to your point, Linda, that when we talk about film and TV and when we consume film and TV, we're only really concerned with representations. Right. Kind of marrying of material realities and representations. I mean, loads of people have tried, right? And for some people it has worked. So both of you have mentioned documentaries, and I think maybe I don't know if either of you have done work in documentaries, but when it comes to thinking about film TV and animals, like with kids' uh uh content, I think animals are pronounced in documentary. Some documentaries like Earthlings, I know a lot of people, it was it wasn't my taste. I I still haven't watched the whole movie, but I know for a lot of people that documentary It was a turning point. It was a turning point, it was a big moment of shock. Now I tend to believe that psychologically, I don't know if moments of shock change behaviour. I think it's more of an accumulative many, many, many cuts break a glass type thing, but maybe I don't know.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:01:26

I think you need to just be in the right place. I certainly don't know when it happened to me. I had given no thought to animals other than I mean, cows are my favourite animal. Well, they were always I had like people would buy me stuff with cows on it, and you know stop at the side of the road, I get off my bike and feed them, and loved them. But I ate them, and I at no point did I put two and two together, and then one day I just did. And it it wasn't accumulation of anything. There was a there was a Greenpeace um activist in a stall in a local town. And I just that just that day in my life, I don't know what else was going on. If I knew the answer, I would be making it happen to everybody else, I guess. And I just happened to sit there, there was a little leaflet, it was a Viva leaflet, I remember, and it had a Little calf on the front, and I was like, Oh, look. And I lifted it, and by the time I finished reading it, I was vegetarian. The penny just dropped, and I and I just seemed to be open to and it's not that I didn't know. I must I must have known.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:02:24

But that's what I'm saying, and accumulating. You were ready to have that message heard.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:02:28

So it's that readiness, it's how we get people to the readiness. And and I guess maybe these documentaries and films, and um maybe less so the kind of um uh animated um representations, maybe less so. But then that's very powerful, the Matilda short that that Ed and Serge have done. So yeah, it's really it's complex. If I knew the answer, the world would be vegan, wouldn't it?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:02:53

I mean, I guess the question is is what do we expect of film and TV? Like maybe I'm expecting too too much. It does everything need to be activist, right? So on the one hand, is the changing people's consumptive behavior, the other hand, it's the fair representation. And these are both, I think, questions of welfare, questions of rights, um, questions of thinking about who belongs.

Ankita Rathour : 1:03:15

So the documentary I was mentioning is called The Elephant Whisperers. It's only a 41-minute uh documentary from 2022. So definitely watch it. That got me thinking a lot about representation and everything. And um, I know we were talking about what does it even mean to understand what animals are feeling. And I grew up with elephants, actually. I would I would remember my childhood just going to the nearby pond and just playing with them and um and really getting to know like what they're feeling, they're smiling, or how they're doing it. I feel that with my dog, too, who's the laziest dog right now, you'll see. And so I've been really thinking about like, what does it mean to even know them? And is it important to know them, to represent them better? And these are the questions I've been thinking, but just to complicate it again, my God, you guys are gonna hate me. Um to talk about some of the vegetarian politics in India, because it's um it's very important to bring caste here. I absolutely recommend looking in uh the works of Bheem Rawam Baitkar, um, Suraji Yengre, uh, my very good friend Kamla Singh, who has always uh talked about caste. But um, but do you know? I'll tell you one thing. So I, as I told you, I was born and brought up in Bihar, which is the eastern indigenous land in India, right? And I would always notice, like when I moved to the north, to the capital city of India, I'm not kidding, Claudia, I could have easily moved to New York. It was so different for me. But when I moved to Rajasthan, this vegetarian belt, we call it, when you move to Rajasthan or certain Hindu areas where they really boast about their vegetarianism, right? Like, oh, we are vegetarians, people who consume meat technically are either poor or Muslim or Dalit, right? Because food politics has been there. Because what is available to them, that's what they have eaten. Like caste was so bad in India, it's still that uh the Dalits survived on eating rat meat. And I always think about that when I think about animals. I was like, because because it shook me. I was like, wow, this is this whole uh kind of narcissistic pleasure that a casteist Hindu gets out of his so-called vegetarianism, which is very interesting because this is the also Hindu who will go and hunt. So you know what I mean? And that, and uh, and initially I thought it is just my OCD or ADHD brain, but I was like, why can't I sit with this contradiction? Well, like you are really virtue signaling and uh maintaining a caste order out of it, but then you're also going in the jungles and shooting the black.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:06:04

It's a very different kind of, and I think you point to, you know, we we tend to think about vegetarianism and veganism as this kind of static and stable concept, but obviously it's not, and it has different histories. And I mean, I'm sure you know Yamini Narianan's book, Mother Cow, Mother India, which yes, absolutely. Which charts the kind of connections between the caste system and the the privileging of cows. So the kind of the the ways in which, and speaking about a representation, the ways in which cows are featured as you know, these the mothers of the nation, and they're also, you know, they're made into gods in effect, but kind of that god status can also lead to a lot of really materially horrible life situations for them, right? And like you say, the mobilization of vegetarianism as a um uh it's not just uh yeah, it's it's it's literally built into institutions and into systems that help to keep a certain group of people privileged over another group of people. Um so the politics of consumption then on in Bollywood films is of I mean, do you see this being represented a lot in a kind of politics of dairy and oh yeah, it's it's very subtle, actually, I would say.

Ankita Rathour : 1:07:16

Um I wrote uh uh my dissertation included a chapter on this. It's about the film Article 15. I think it came out in 2019, and the movie is doing really kind of a good job in kind of representing caste atrocities, but I was very intrigued by this. Um was it a blind spot? I don't know. In that particular scene, the villain, right, the casteist villain, is seen eating meat, and the police officer uh is somebody who only is vegetarian. And I was like, that's interesting because for me it's also like it underdoes the meaning you're trying to portray. Because again, you're associating, you know, him eating chicken, let's say, with villainy, which kind of also kind of undoes the anti-caste rhetoric or or like the caste, uh, you know, the critique of casteism that you're trying to portray. And these are some subtle ways. And and just to mention it, there are many movies. There is a Satijitre short film, which um which is called Sadgati uh Deliverance. It is it is uh it's a 45-minute short film. I can send you guys the YouTube link. Uh it's it's all about this Dalit man and how he's treated even worse than an animal. So, you know, he he works for this high-caste Hindus who so-called respect the cow, but they don't. Material contradiction is everything. And the way he is killed and just left to kind of rot away with the carcasses of other animals. So there are some very important Indian cinema which have really tried to show you that. But again, I was very I'm I'm always very intrigued, Claudia, by what gets distributed and how. So there are Hindi films, right, who who have which have done a great job in kind of bringing the anthropic and uh, you know, a uh good representation when it comes to human-animal coexistence. But uh I think for me and from my study, what I have seen, it it all comes down to distribution. So, for example, I would I would love to see this movie streaming. They don't. And that's been my biggest challenge. Like uh how to uh make sure that they uh, you know, not get lost eventually.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:09:37

That's really interesting, actually, because it my automatic response to that is who's behind that not getting out then.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:09:44

And also just to add, I I will uh ask listeners to look into the labor politics of animals being used in Hindi cinema. It's a whole another rabbit hole which I can go and actually do research. Early on, you mentioned kind of this changing arc, right, of of of uh Hindi cinema. But I think you've seen this changing arc of animals in in Western cinema as well. I mean one of the one of the changes in arcs was I was reading just before this, the kind of all of a sudden the addition at the end of a film saying no animals were hurt in this film. This was a it wasn't something that was always there. So you you're starting to get a realization of people asking, and that to me points to the fact that either people in the industry or people consuming those films were starting to ask enough questions that this was warranted. Yeah, but then also in terms of the types of stories that were being told, I mean, one can't help but think back to their own childhood, right? Like I grew up with Free Willy and Lassie, and like you said, all of these like the Benji, oh my god, Benji, and all dogs go to heaven. And these these movies were all about animals having a lot of agency and like fighting systems, but also with like a human friend often, right? Like a human that saw them for them. And it was a lot of I again. I'm I don't know if like Linda, do these types of films? I don't, it seems Do you know what we must be we must be the same age more or less because that's my childhood as well. But like, yeah, like what is the what is this what kids are consuming? Because I I don't get the sense that you've got these kinds of like human animal, whereas and and Kita, you were you were also saying these kinds of like animals in service of humans, sure, you know, like the humans all going to their heroing and everyone to save something, and there's the dog who's coming along for the ride. But there was a moment when the main protagonists were actual real animals, real animal actors who were like fighting a system. And the irony of this, and it's perhaps another paradox, is who is Free Willy in real life, right? And and the whole, and if I'm not mistaken, I think I think it did end up leading to protests about the actual whale's life, and he was released, if I'm not mistaken.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:12:00

I can't remember which orca it was, yeah, but but then there's still that's um the movie, is it Blackfish?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:12:05

Yeah, Blackfish.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:12:07

Yeah, it's a little bit it's it's terrifying. But then also I don't know if there's so much stuff like that anymore. Again, pro possibly linked to that. Um uh the you know, the lack of common ground in terms of what people watch now, maybe. But then also, I'm thinking about um Wicked recently.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:12:30

Everyone's talking to me about it.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:12:34

Yeah, there's other oh, it's really good. I think it's really red trick.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:12:39

That makes it that makes it good.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:12:42

Um I'm not entirely sure because it's not a story that's like new to anyone, right? It's the Wizard of Oz, right? But um part of it is about at the university or the magic university, whatnot, um, animals used to be the ones teaching. And now there's only one left, and he's a so I th is he a goat? I don't remember anyway. Um part of I don't want to put any spoilers in, but clearly the history of this magical place has involved an awful lot of non-humans and the wisdom that they bring with them. I mean, of course, they speak and all that stuff and they wear clothes and that and glasses and whatnot, so there's a bit of a kind of lack of reality there. But animals are definitely a theme in there that you can but then again the the the as with many kind of more fantasy films, you've got some of the the evildoers being you know, having little squads of flying monkeys or you know, it's bats or it's whatever, you know. So um that's still maintained. You're talking about the man eating tigers earlier, you know, we should be afraid of of what we don't understand, I suppose. Um but again, all of this comes down to and ultimately in in the Wizard of Oz, generally it's all about power, isn't it? And the power that comes from or the power that people want to um have over others, usually less fortunate or usually less worldly wise. Um and I and uh I think that's a theme that runs through whatever it is that we're talking about, whether it's a documentary, whether it's um whether it's animation, or whatever it happens to be, is this someone is making a decision to get back to this idea about how it's disseminated, who makes the decisions about what's purchased for what channel and whether or not it's streamed and whether it's free to stream or whether it you know, and there's a lot of stuff on YouTube, thankfully, at least briefly you can watch something before it's taken down. Um other streaming sites are available. Um, but that somebody makes a decision about do we want lots of people to watch this or not? And I can't help but again, cynicism is part of the job with sociology, right? I can't help but wonder that when things are become controversial and oh nobody should be watching that, maybe, or it's like behind paywalls or whatever, that it's because maybe it is very powerful.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:15:06

Um and could this be a chicken egg situation though? Because um, because I mean there's the idea that you've got someone who's making a decision on what do we want the consumers to consume, but there is arguably also a responsiveness of industry to what people are asking for in terms of consumption, where they spend their money, right? People spend money on consuming paper peg on going to watch X-Men on going. So, if again, we need to remember that these are we're expecting them to act as PSAs, right? So there's daytime television, we have different expectations of our government TV, and we haven't really spoken about that. And then there's private industries that are operating with the intention of making money. And we we use that logic when we think about uh food consumption, right? We do say, not to say that the the buck ends with personal choice because a lot of how things are packaged in the supermarket, et cetera, also shape consumption, but we do at least acknowledge that the consumer has some power over saying what it is they want. And I think you're seeing the consumer shape some film and television now in terms of the number of female protagonists you're seeing, the increasing proportion of stories being told outside of uh the US and outside of uh, you know, not always done well, but you have definitely seen an uptick in terms of in terms of uh representations of of homosexual people or gay rights, uh, but not even just like characters just happen to be gay on TV now. When I was growing up, if you were the gay character, it was like this big It was part of the plot. Now you know you're just a character who happens to be gay, and that's the way it should be. It's it's the power of the norm. This to me is, and it's if you think about the speed with which this has happened, right? Let's say 20, 30 years, there's been a really marked shift in terms of some of the representation of humans on film and TV. And this points to me to one, a desire from consumers, and two, a responsiveness from industry to say, well, if we don't change, then our consumers are gonna leave us. So obviously, you know, there's there's something going on here with regards to to animals. There's who decides, but also has there been enough push, I guess, to ask for these things.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:17:27

Yeah, I'm not sure if there's a push, but certainly um um this this pluralism, this idea that you know it's it's there because we want it and it's it's but we want it so it's there. It is a bit like that, isn't it? What did come first? Um I think though, for anything to be made, someone has to make a case for it. Whether it's uh government TV, we've got the BBC here, which isn't run by the government, it's apparently um uh what's the word, independent, but um what the BBC would show would be very, very different perhaps from what you could be able to stream on Netflix, for example. But it still needs funding, right? It still needs funding to be made. Um the thing that Ed did with Surge, that was uh they got some some support from um a couple organisations for that. Yeah, there's there is a shift, there is certainly a shift in human representation for sure. But there's also a shift politically and it's becoming more widespread. Um I'm speaking from Scotland, part of the UK, and that's again whether that's okay or not is another thing for debate, but um where uh some right of centre parties have just managed to within only a few months of government managed to overthrow a couple of um seats here for this reform party, Nigel Farage and these people so um and somebody was speaking on the radio earlier saying, Why did you vote for them? Well, because you know they're letting in too many um black people or there's too many people coming here. It's all about immigration, it's all about othering and animalizing people the same as is happening in in um in other places in the world right now. So it's complicated. So why while there's a shift, a kind of um progressive, more liberal, more socialist shift, there's like that right-wing backlash that almost immediately follows.

Ankita Rathour : 1:19:25

All of this is such a fascinating conversation. I think three papers are coming out of this, thanks to you guys. But do you know I was thinking about the credit that you talk about, Claudia? You'll see in the films that no animals were harmed. And it actually reminded me of a Hindi film which was released this year. It's called Azad Free, and it's about this young stable boy who forms a deep relationship with a horse, and um, you know, and he is of a lower caste and how he tries to fight against the native oppression and the British colonial oppression because the you know, the casteist Hindus very much colluded with the colonizers. But it was interesting what I found about that movie. They used CGI to create the horse, and I was like, this is interesting because now they can claim that you know no animals are harmed and we really care about the animals, but we are going to the CGI now. Okay, but then we are also talking about representing the animals as they are, like the reality. And I don't know what happens with that, but it just uh came to my mind. I was like, so I've gotta dig deeper into that, like what happens.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:20:34

Like I did think about CGI earlier because I was thinking about Warhorse, the movie War Horse.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:20:38

Yeah, exactly.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:20:39

Um I mean, if what they can do now is it's unbelievable. But yeah, then is it representation if it isn't real? But when it's real, then there's issues of uh labor. True.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:20:49

I for me, I think it's it's pretty. I mean, at least for me, like the I don't have perhaps the nuance here. I think that if it's not real animals on the screen, generally that's probably a good thing. Because what do we mean when we say harm, right? Like no animals were harmed in this film, um, and not in these policies. So we've spoken about capitalism, we've spoken about representation, we've spoken about consumption, but you also have to speak about the policy, right? Like who's included in this, what is constituted as harm or not harm. Um, and and again, it's not to say animals don't necessarily enjoy these, you know, Kendrick Kultz has done a lot of great work on thinking about humane jobs. And there is maybe an argument to be made that, you know, many some animals enjoy uh training activities and doing these things, but there are also questions to be asked about the pet industry uh and the proclivity of, you know, what does it take to get an elephant to do X in a film that you want? You can get CGI to do that. Um, but then you have to ask, what are the ramifications of this technology and which environments does this technology impact? I hear you, um, it's it's never easy, is it?

Ankita Rathour : 1:22:00

Totally makes sense because I was actually happy when I saw that that uh they use CGI. I was like, okay, good. Because my initial concern was just the horse. All the action I was watching. I was like, are they doing this with the real horse?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:22:12

It's actually trip horses. So you know when you see those old movies of horses like falling knees to actually just have um tripwire. Yeah, trip tripwise to to uh it's okay.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:22:24

That was the same movies where they had white people blacked up in order to look savages. Yeah.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:22:30

Um minstrel shows and everything, exactly.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:22:34

Yeah. Um yeah, gosh. Um I think we've kind of got away from that, but then then we're in an interesting situation where um, you know, there's even issues about disability, and if there's some kind of movie or show about a particular disability, it really should be an actor with that disability uh that that does the that has the part. You know, there's been people getting upset about people were upset that the little mermaid wasn't a white mermaid. I'm like, you know what's a mermaid, right? Like I d I don't really anyway, um people got upset about I don't know what's happening. Um but yeah, I th I I feel like it's there is a shift. You're absolutely right, Claudia, about about shifts. It's whether it the right shifts are happening in the right moments to the right animals.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:23:24

It's probably not singular, right? Like, like you said, there is a bit of a pendulum and there'll be pushbacks and and this idea that there's somehow an end, like a perfect end, is perhaps something we we need to hold in suspension. But uh there can certainly be a better place for uh animals. Uh and I think the fact that we're having this conversation points to the idea that scholars are starting to think about how animals are represented, one, but also how animals are treated in the making of. And and I think that's important and will probably be important in terms of achieving our longer-term uh, let's say, political commitments of how we would like animals to be taken seriously as subjects, right? So, okay, but we're we're nearing the end now, otherwise I'm gonna end up talking to you guys until tomorrow. Um, just to round up, so keeping in mind that this is a season focused on animals and media, and our goal today has been to talk about film and movies. I think, and let me know if I've missed anything. One, we've spoken about you know levels of representation and that they're often politicized, but they also have tensions between being both global and local. So when you think about representation, you have to hold those intention. Two, questions of consumption, um, not only how the media is being consumed, but also how the animals tied to that media are being consumed, um, and also how consumption I think happens in the film itself, right? Like how is meat happening, uh, who's eating what? How does this display representations of villainy or heroism important? Three, the different types of genres you get in film and TV. So whether it's children's films, whether it's documentaries, whether it's uh, you know, regionally specific films, like Hindi films, but different Hindi films in different areas, these have different nuances and reach. Um and um, yeah, I maybe that's connected to the the first one as well. And I think the last one we spoke about was, I guess, tied to kind of capitalism and material versus affective realities. Um, so I mean we we were kind of all over the the place there, I think, um, but we touched on some important dimensions of I think animals and of course the interconnected oppressions, right? Interconnected oppressions um uh both in representation and in material effects. Uh is there anything I've missed or something that you guys think has not yet come up in this conversation that would be important for listeners to know?

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:25:51

I think that perhaps um we can't take away from the fact that actual experiences are the same as the ones Ankita you spoke about when you were little. Actual experiences with real life, not animated animals, does seem to make a difference for a lot of people. I'm thinking of the babe movie, Pigs Again, and how James Cromwell, the actor, by the time that first movie was finished and it was real pigs that were used there, he was vegan and he's been arrested, he's done this I also include him in my paper on that basis. He's done some amazing work now to to explain to people how pigs are smarter than dogs, goes the research. So how people can sit with a dog beside them and not see um but maybe they need to meet pigs. Maybe they I had a great friend, Sheila, she's passed now since um and she did loads of work with chickens on um in a sanctuary in the States, and she said they're all different, Linda, they've all got their own little personalities, they're just amazing. And I'd never met chickens much to know that. I mean I I don't didn't not believe that, I just hadn't thought about it before. Um and she wrote poems about different chickens and four different chickens, and it didn't make her vegan, she was already vegan, but it certainly made other people more aware because she had those experiences to share.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:27:18

I would just raise a flag there though, that it also it also is important about where these interactions happen, because one of the things that prompts again a kind of material connection to films is the the tendency of wanting to then have these animals in zoos or petting or buy them. And and I think something is very different when you're interacting with an animal who you happen to interact with or who's in a sanctuary who can choose to interact with you versus one who you're seeing through a glass. Yes, that's what I know, I know that's what you mean. I just I just wondered.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:27:52

I should have probably put a flag. Yeah, that's that's what I meant, not to just let's go out and meet one. And actually, there's a great that there's a great um sanctuary here in Scotland called Tribe Sa uh Tribe Animal Sanctuary. And um they not only do they um do amazing work for the non-humans they rescue, they also don't open to the public frequently. Um it's a now and again situation. You go for a few hours, they'll give you a tour, they tell you the stories of these animals, um, where they came from, how they came to be in their care. Um they recommend what to bring, all that kind of stuff. You know, I didn't I didn't know, for example, that hens like grapes. There you go. So um these kinds of things. Um but again they're not doing it for the visitors, which a lot of these kinds of places have been known to do. Um, but people can't help but be moved when they meet or see these animals. That said, because of the nature of the work that they do, they often only attract people who are already convinced by the arguments. So yeah, rather we don't want to just keep preaching to the converted, we want to try and um this. But then that's what my PhD work is about. Um, is hoping that once people realise how unvegan um the the the animal animals are represented in school and the textbooks that they get and the stories that they're told and and um I mean there's even the the the meat and dairy industry have huge, huge power and money to invest in educational um resources for schools and whatnot. Um say okay, you're doing farming as a theme. Well if can you just maybe look at how we make carrots perhaps and potatoes? You know, this is this is Scotland, there's potatoes in Scotland. So this kind of kind of thing, and trying to just make ever if you by making things more vegan accessible, what you're doing is taking away those um alternate, kind of maybe less beneficial representations of non-humans that keep that and maintain those kinds of views. Um and but by being unfortunately sometimes you have to show uh I mean I d I would prefer it won't this way, but in order to get people to shift, you have to see there's a human benefit for people to really uh sign up to it. So, you know, this plant-based foods kind of um thing that's happened in the UK where now you can buy basically a vegan dish in almost every restaurant, even in the chains, um fast food restaurants. I I mean I can't really complain because what it's doing is opening up these opportunities and making the case for ultra-processed food is very bad for you, but ultra-processed plant food is less bad for you because the processing doesn't alter the chemical, you know, so it's like so these kinds of things I I feel like we're still at a stage where that the hum humans have to be seen to benefit before before society will accept some shifts. It's unfortunate, but it's so we need to make the most out of that while um while we can, I guess.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:31:10

Uh and Kita, any final thoughts with regards to film and TV? Uh I think uh one suggestion would be to just now watch films and TV with animals in your mind. I think it uh, you know, these discussions are very helpful in those ways. Like it completely shifts how you're going to engage with the film now. And um and definitely, definitely think about these various um kind of ways in which power, uh, especially power permeates our conversation, whether it comes to animal uh anthropic or animality. So yeah, definitely. I mean, there are many movies uh to think about how animals have been represented. I think uh I am a Bollywood scholar, but I I very strongly recommend exploring um alternative Hindi films, which are not that mainstream Bollywood, and other regional Indian cinema for a much uh, you know, just Just animal storytelling if you are looking into idea.

Ankita Rathour : 1:32:14

Yeah. I mean, I think there's something to be said for also just choosing to not go mainstream. And um I don't know if I'm always the best with this, because again, it's it's a question of that like streaming service, right? It's like the question of convenience. What is convenient to consume right now? And um yeah, I think I think if we want you know, I think there was a film recently called The Last Peg, which I heard great things about in terms of uh, you know, showing mindset shifts. I haven't watched it, like how have I not watched this film? So it's like there is there's something to be said for um making sure that you make the time to watch the films that might be doing it right. So that's my homework to go and watch, to go and watch those. Um, as we say goodbye now, perhaps you guys could tell us, you've given us some hints at what you're currently working on. Uh, but if you want to give us a uh a closer breakdown of what you're currently working on, and if people want to get in touch with you to learn more, how do they do so? Um and Kita, why don't we start with you?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:33:18

Okay. So, as I said before, I'll be working on my book proposal this summer, um, which is a very interesting book proposal. It's for a series, which is called Food in India, but I'm doing a very different take on food. I'm actually talking about consumption in animals too, uh, in that uh how we have completely changed the discourse around nourishment and how it is very much uh interlinked with how we engage with not only animals, but the way we talk about other humans, minorities. And if you want to get in touch with me, uh well, I'm on LinkedIn, Ankitarator. Uh, I have a website which is on Georgia Tech. So if you type my name in Georgia Tech, it will take you there. But I also have a podcast, I'm gonna shamelessly plug my podcast into it, the Daisy Gays. We are trying to do uh a different work because we are trying to bring uh important Indian cinema which talks about topics like that. And I think in my summer, that's what I'll be doing. Claudia, I will be expanding and I will be writing a chapter on the 1994 film Aranyak, which means into the jungle and exploring the connections between um class colonialism, animals, and cannibalism. Wow, super interesting. And I'll make sure to put the links to everything, including your podcast, in the show notes. Uh Linda, how about you?

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:34:37

Yeah, I'm hoping to by the summer be interviewing all my the little people that are um little little vegans in Scotland. So everyone between the ages of four and twelve who are vegan, who are who whose parents agree to let them talk to me anyway. So I'm hoping to get that done. Um I teach uh sociology at uh local Furtherhead College, so I have my summer off, which is nice. Spend a lot of time with my daughter. Um in terms of being in touch, I I think I've got a couple of chapters and various bits and bobs of the book, so I'll send you some links, Claudia, uh, just because I forget what's happening. Sometimes it takes a couple of years between writing something and actually coming out, so I forget where I'm at with things. Um but yeah, I'm also on LinkedIn um and I I have a website, but it's it's not very good, so I need to do some work on that. So um, but also I'm on most social media at LM Corinbocus, so people can find me that way as well. But wonderful. Um LinkedIn is as good as any, and I need to get better at using that because apparently it's a bit more professional than my usual.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:35:41

Academics somehow have to be like, it's incredible how often at the end of the segment, like how these are academics that are writing books and doing amazing things, and everybody like, oh, I gotta get better at Twitter. And like now, Twitter's gone out the window, everyone's like, oh, I gotta get better at LinkedIn. You know what? Like, it's okay. It's okay if we don't quite have polished web spaces. Blue sky, you know, as well. And they'd have to do it. I can't keep up. It's it's okay, is what I'm saying, because I can't keep up, and no one can seem to keep up, and the people who can't keep up are amazing. Um, but I think, I think, uh, I think it's totally fine. Um, I'll make sure that your links to LinkedIn and whatever are available. And listeners curb your enthusiasm, okay? Because none of us are web designers. Okay. Um, all right, thank you both of you for being on the show and for being so generous with your your time and ideas today. And uh yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:36:31

Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:36:37

Thank you to Linda and Nankita for being so generous and being incredible guests. Thank you also to Animals and Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics, Apple for sponsoring this podcast, and the Pollination Project, the School of Modern Language, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, as well as the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech University, for co-sponsoring this season. The bad music was composed by Gordon Clark and the logo designed by Jeremy John. This episode was produced, hosted, and edited by myself. This is The Animal Took with me, Claudia Hokenfelder.

Lynda Korimboccus : 1:37:33

For more great iRule podcasts, visit irullpod.com. That's I R O A R P O D.com.