Reframing perceptions of anthropomorphism in wildlife film and ...

Many of the producers involved in the True-Life Adventures films had previously
worked in the animation departments at Walt Disney Productions (King 1996 and
Mitman 1999). The success of the True-Life Adventures was in part due to extending
the established creative pathways established for the animated features onto the wildlife
films (King 2006 and Mitman 1999, MacDonald 2006). Disney may have been fond of
saying that ‗Nature writes the screenplays‘, but the True-Life Adventures introduced the
concept of real animal ‗stars‘ to the American public, naming and personifying
otherwise indistinct wild creatures. In 1957‘s Perri, squirrel biology became part of
‗Perri‘s adventures‘ – following her as she fights enemies, makes a home and eventually
finds true love (Figure 3.2). Personification of animal characters is also unmistakable in
this excerpt of narration from The Living Desert:
Narrator: Now, in the cool of the morning the ground squirrels appear. These
are the Round-tails whose favourite breakfast is the prickly pear cactus...
Breakfast often lasts all morning - unless there‘s an interruption. It‘s old
Nosey Parker, the roadrunner. Incidentally he‘s a member of the cuckoo
family – a charter member as far as the squirrels are concerned! Still they
know how to handle this clown - just give him a taste of his own medicine! But
no sooner are the rid of one nuisance then another appears. This time it‘s Sweet
William, the spotted skunk…
Interestingly Perri was billed as a True-Life Fantasy instead of a True-life Adventure, a
category specially created in order to avoid the ties to real-life squirrel biology (King
1996).
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