Hollywood Utopia

140 Hollywood Utopia
Glotfelty 1996: 134-5). Ecologists often highlight this experience of lost unity, even
separation, from the rest of the natural world and a desire to regain it as central to
the core meaning of human nature. Such ‘desire’ often goes ‘beyond the human’
(ibid.) and serves as a philosophical bedrock for a form of deep ecological
affirmation above and beyond the ideological mapping of human nature which is
predicated on more recognisable notions of race, class and gender differences.
As Colin MacCabe suggested, there has been ‘no new attempt to theorise the
relations between politics and film’ since the 1970s. In its place there is what he
describes as ‘a load of local ideological readings, fuelled by identity politics which
rarely engage with film as form and history’ (MacCabe 1999: 124). This
preoccupation with ‘local issues’ and ‘identity politics’ has resulted in cultural
theorists often playing safe and avoiding the risk of addressing the ‘big picture’
involving human ontology within which ecological debates must have a central
position. What it means to be an ‘eco-human’ is, of course, more difficult to
discuss, much less textually analyse, than the more manageable and definable
aspect of gender and identity politics which is more clearly coded and delineated,
at least in representational terms.
A key metaphorical breakthrough that solidified a deep holistic approach to planet
Earth occurred with the scientific actualisation of space travel and the ability to
(re)present the whole planet for the first time using the perceptual tools of
photography. This paradigm shift is innocently signalled within the closure of The
Incredible Shrinking Man and contrasted with a more contemporary example,
Contact (1998). Yet this apparently linear, even historical, evolution of ecological
representations is far from deterministic, as is clear from a psychological
interpretation of ecological agency explored in Contact.
1960s countercultural idealism, explored in the previous chapter, has also had a
profound impact on the science fiction genre. Gene Roddenberry’s cult television
series Star Trek and subsequent spin-off films like First Contact (1996) will be
investigated to articulate variations in representations through the creation of
memorable and engaging non-human life forms like Spock and Data, together with
pernicious enemies like the Borg, which help to articulate radical ecological
expressions. 1970s examples of science fiction like Soylent Green and Logan’s Run
help to illustrate the transformation towards a more eco-centric evocation of
agency together with a more complex engagement with controversial ecological
issues, particularly population control.
Hollywood cinema in general is good at portraying effects but finds it difficult to
show causes which might address underpinning ecological problems. Causality is
primarily a motivational agent of character and plot, propelling the narrative to a
final resolution. However, following the growth in scientific knowledge and