Animating Eco-aesthetics: Multiplanar Images, Interspecies Government, and Eco-conscious Gaming in The Legend of Hei (2019) and Its TV Series (2011–Present)
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Li Guo
Li Guo (Professor of Chinese and Asian studies) teaches Chinese language, literature, Asian literatures and film at Utah State University. Her research interests include Chinese women’s narratives, folk literature, film, and comparative literature. She is the author of
Women’s Tanci Fiction in Late Imperial and Early Twentieth-Century China (Purdue UP, 2015), andWriting Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction (Purdue, 2021). She is the co-editor with Patricia Sieber and Peter Kornicki of a volume titledReading and Writing Across Lines: Ecologies of Translation in East and South East Asia, 1600–1900 (Amsterdam UP, 2022). Her articles appeared inModern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC , 2019),Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (FLSC , 2011, 2014),Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (2014),CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (2013),Film International (2012),Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature (2021). She has co-edited special issues forMCLC (2019),Journal of Chinese Cinemas (2017),FLSC (2014, 2017), andCLCWeb (2013).
Abstract
This study on the animation feature The Legend of Hei (2019) and its TV animation series (2011 to the present) endeavors to explore nascent models of eco-aesthetics in Chinese animation through an intersectional framework bridging studies of eco-politics, eco-cinema, and contemporary animation and media studies. Through close analysis of multiplanar imaging and limited animation in the animation feature, I discuss how varied animation techniques in the film contribute to aesthetic effects of appearance and disappearance, diversified characterization, and representations of contesting models of ecological subjectivities, bio-politics, and environmental governance. Contrary to a radical ecologist’s approach that resorts to forceful undertakings to “rescue nature,” the animation projects an alternative ethico-political method that promotes co-existence, inter-species governance, tolerance, and the art of “letting be.” The latter half of the essay situates the TV animation series The Battle of Luo Xiaohei in the milieu of eco-cinema and media ecology. I argue that the TV animation’s transmedial presentation of ACG gaming, platformativity, and parasocial participation of gamers, human characters and elfin alike, offer new insights on videogaming as social and cultural responses to environmental crises, also drawing attention to the ethico-political potential of parasocial gameplay in promoting democratic ideals of ecosystem governance.
About the author
Li Guo (Professor of Chinese and Asian studies) teaches Chinese language, literature, Asian literatures and film at Utah State University. Her research interests include Chinese women’s narratives, folk literature, film, and comparative literature. She is the author of Women’s Tanci Fiction in Late Imperial and Early Twentieth-Century China (Purdue UP, 2015), and Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women’s Tanci Fiction (Purdue, 2021). She is the co-editor with Patricia Sieber and Peter Kornicki of a volume titled Reading and Writing Across Lines: Ecologies of Translation in East and South East Asia, 1600–1900 (Amsterdam UP, 2022). Her articles appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC, 2019), Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (FLSC, 2011, 2014), Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (2014), CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (2013), Film International (2012), Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature (2021). She has co-edited special issues for MCLC (2019), Journal of Chinese Cinemas (2017), FLSC (2014, 2017), and CLCWeb (2013).
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Analysis of China’s Film Industry in 2022
- Theory of the Filmic: Classical Interpretation of Chinese Film Aesthetics
- Perspectives on Narrative Time in Chinese Cinema
- “Kongqi” Theory and the Aesthetic Spirit of Chinese Film
- On the “Imagination Consumption” of Film in the Internet Age
- A Revisionist Reading of The Goddess: Visual Narrative Power in Chinese Silent Cinema
- “Home, Sweet Home”: Identity and Diaspora in Bai Jing-rui’s Qiong Yao Films
- A Comparative Analysis of “Rural Science Fiction”, a New Chinese Film Genre
- Animating Eco-aesthetics: Multiplanar Images, Interspecies Government, and Eco-conscious Gaming in The Legend of Hei (2019) and Its TV Series (2011–Present)
- Jinxed by Incantation? Contemporary Chinese Netizens’ Reactions to a Horror Film
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Analysis of China’s Film Industry in 2022
- Theory of the Filmic: Classical Interpretation of Chinese Film Aesthetics
- Perspectives on Narrative Time in Chinese Cinema
- “Kongqi” Theory and the Aesthetic Spirit of Chinese Film
- On the “Imagination Consumption” of Film in the Internet Age
- A Revisionist Reading of The Goddess: Visual Narrative Power in Chinese Silent Cinema
- “Home, Sweet Home”: Identity and Diaspora in Bai Jing-rui’s Qiong Yao Films
- A Comparative Analysis of “Rural Science Fiction”, a New Chinese Film Genre
- Animating Eco-aesthetics: Multiplanar Images, Interspecies Government, and Eco-conscious Gaming in The Legend of Hei (2019) and Its TV Series (2011–Present)
- Jinxed by Incantation? Contemporary Chinese Netizens’ Reactions to a Horror Film
