Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change
In the first season of the television Eco Noir crime series Fortitude (2015) the polar bear appears as a sticky object that embodies an ambiguous affective charge as an icon of global warming. This article discusses the ways in which the polar bear evokes viewer affect in the series through two disc...
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European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment
2021
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ftjyvaeskylaenun:oai:jyx.jyu.fi:123456789/79780 2024-05-19T07:43:12+00:00 Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change Mäntymäki, Helen 2021 application/pdf 150-165 fulltext http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 eng eng European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment Ecozon@ 2171-9594 2 12 10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 Mäntymäki, H. (2021). Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change. Ecozon@ , 12 (2), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 CONVID_104200932 URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 CC BY-NC 4.0 © 2021 Ecozon openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ polar bear global warming affect crime fiction Fortitude jääkarhu rikoskirjallisuus ilmastonmuutokset affektiivisuus väkivalta dystopiat televisiosarjat ihminen-eläinsuhde luontosuhde ekokritiikki vaikuttaminen ympäristövaikutukset lämpeneminen ilmasto tunteet rikossarjat ilmastopolitiikka article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 publishedVersion A1 2021 ftjyvaeskylaenun https://doi.org/10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 2024-04-23T23:38:28Z In the first season of the television Eco Noir crime series Fortitude (2015) the polar bear appears as a sticky object that embodies an ambiguous affective charge as an icon of global warming. This article discusses the ways in which the polar bear evokes viewer affect in the series through two discourses. The first one relates to violence, essentially present in crime narratives, and how the human and nonhuman animal are positioned in relation to global warming, violence and each other. It raises questions of place and belonging in a local and global context and examines how the polar bear is constructed in terms of stranger danger and victimization in relation to human animals and the threat of global warming. The second one targets the ways in which the polar bear is rendered sticky as the object of the human gaze and how this process of human animals looking at photographs of bears both constructs and deconstructs the subject-object relation, hierarchy and agency. Methodologically, the article draws on “close looking” and the main theoretical starting points are ecocriticism and affect theory. The article argues that the representation of the polar bear contributes in essential ways to the socially and environmentally critical emphasis essential in contemporary crime narratives including Fortitude: the distracting and emotionally charged representation of the polar bear evokes ambiguous affective responses in viewers. Thus, as the article further argues, a representation of this kind is capable of—and liable to— inducing a heightened awareness of the present environmental crisis than a more straightforward, less affectively charged representation. peerReviewed Article in Journal/Newspaper jääkarhu polar bear JYX - Jyväskylä University Digital Archive Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 12 2 150 165 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
JYX - Jyväskylä University Digital Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftjyvaeskylaenun |
language |
English |
topic |
polar bear global warming affect crime fiction Fortitude jääkarhu rikoskirjallisuus ilmastonmuutokset affektiivisuus väkivalta dystopiat televisiosarjat ihminen-eläinsuhde luontosuhde ekokritiikki vaikuttaminen ympäristövaikutukset lämpeneminen ilmasto tunteet rikossarjat ilmastopolitiikka |
spellingShingle |
polar bear global warming affect crime fiction Fortitude jääkarhu rikoskirjallisuus ilmastonmuutokset affektiivisuus väkivalta dystopiat televisiosarjat ihminen-eläinsuhde luontosuhde ekokritiikki vaikuttaminen ympäristövaikutukset lämpeneminen ilmasto tunteet rikossarjat ilmastopolitiikka Mäntymäki, Helen Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
topic_facet |
polar bear global warming affect crime fiction Fortitude jääkarhu rikoskirjallisuus ilmastonmuutokset affektiivisuus väkivalta dystopiat televisiosarjat ihminen-eläinsuhde luontosuhde ekokritiikki vaikuttaminen ympäristövaikutukset lämpeneminen ilmasto tunteet rikossarjat ilmastopolitiikka |
description |
In the first season of the television Eco Noir crime series Fortitude (2015) the polar bear appears as a sticky object that embodies an ambiguous affective charge as an icon of global warming. This article discusses the ways in which the polar bear evokes viewer affect in the series through two discourses. The first one relates to violence, essentially present in crime narratives, and how the human and nonhuman animal are positioned in relation to global warming, violence and each other. It raises questions of place and belonging in a local and global context and examines how the polar bear is constructed in terms of stranger danger and victimization in relation to human animals and the threat of global warming. The second one targets the ways in which the polar bear is rendered sticky as the object of the human gaze and how this process of human animals looking at photographs of bears both constructs and deconstructs the subject-object relation, hierarchy and agency. Methodologically, the article draws on “close looking” and the main theoretical starting points are ecocriticism and affect theory. The article argues that the representation of the polar bear contributes in essential ways to the socially and environmentally critical emphasis essential in contemporary crime narratives including Fortitude: the distracting and emotionally charged representation of the polar bear evokes ambiguous affective responses in viewers. Thus, as the article further argues, a representation of this kind is capable of—and liable to— inducing a heightened awareness of the present environmental crisis than a more straightforward, less affectively charged representation. peerReviewed |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mäntymäki, Helen |
author_facet |
Mäntymäki, Helen |
author_sort |
Mäntymäki, Helen |
title |
Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
title_short |
Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
title_full |
Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
title_fullStr |
Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
title_full_unstemmed |
Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change |
title_sort |
polar bear in 'fortitude' : affective aesthetics and politics of climate change |
publisher |
European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 |
genre |
jääkarhu polar bear |
genre_facet |
jääkarhu polar bear |
op_relation |
Ecozon@ 2171-9594 2 12 10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 Mäntymäki, H. (2021). Polar Bear in 'Fortitude' : Affective Aesthetics and Politics of Climate Change. Ecozon@ , 12 (2), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 CONVID_104200932 URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202202151508 |
op_rights |
CC BY-NC 4.0 © 2021 Ecozon openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.37536/ecozona.2021.12.2.4391 |
container_title |
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
150 |
op_container_end_page |
165 |
_version_ |
1799482921276407808 |