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Staying Away from Cthulhu Rather than Embracing the Cthulhucene: Human and Non-Human Relations in Netflix's The Sea Beast
Linköping University, Department of Science and Technology, Media and Information Technology. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering. (Visuell mediekommunikation)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7235-2967
Linköping University, Department of Culture and Society, Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media. Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0496-3093
2025 (English)In: Framing Sustainability in Language and Communication / [ed] Maida Kosatica and Sean P. Smith, New York: Routledge, 2025, p. 240-258Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This chapter analyses the ways in which (un)sustainability is represented in the Netflix children’s film The Sea Beast (2022) from the perspectives of visual culture and environmental history. First, the film addresses the unsustainable use of sea resources, such as hunting and poaching. However, instead of portraying actual marine species, the film shows enormous fantastic monsters. The authors argue that monsters have been used to embody the non-human world and the concept of “nature” as something both beautiful and dangerous. Second, they demonstrate that the visual aesthetics of The Sea Beast are a recycling project themselves, as they are largely indebted to monsters depicted in Olaus Magnus’s famous Carta Marina created in the sixteenth century. The authors consolidate these two themes by problematising the film’s approach to (un)sustainability. Namely, they examine the ways human–non-human relations are portrayed, with non-humans depicted as needing to earn humans’ compassion. While monsters remain in the focus, the film does not encourage care for other non-human inhabitants and parts of the marine ecosystem. The authors further argue that while the film concludes by encouraging sustainable approaches towards marine environments, it does not provide a feasible answer on how to do so. By portraying a dreamlike universe inhabited by humans and monsters, The Sea Beast ultimately fails to address questions of sustainable approaches towards non-fictional species.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New York: Routledge, 2025. p. 240-258
National Category
Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities and Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-213965Libris ID: 2n5zfxq404fb4v3sISBN: 9781032719214 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-213965DiVA, id: diva2:1961822
Available from: 2025-05-27 Created: 2025-05-27 Last updated: 2025-07-31Bibliographically approved

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Fälton, EmelieIgnatova, Polina

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