Film, Environment, Comedy

This book explores the transformative power of comedy to help connect a wider audience to films that explore environmental concerns and issues.

Robin L. Murray is Professor Emeritus of English (Eastern Illinois University) and continues to teach film courses. Joseph K. Heumann is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies (Eastern Illinois University) and continues to teach film courses.

Introduction: Defining Eco-Comedy Part 1: Comic Genres and the Green World: Pastoral, Anti-Pastoral, and Post-Pastoral 1. The Green World and the Screwball Comedy: A Pastoral World of Play 2. Turning Romance Green: Anti- and Post-Pastoral Approaches to Love in Gendered Comedies 3. The Shape of Water (2017) and the Post-Pastoral Comic Mash-Up Part 2: Laughter, Eco-Heroes, and Evolutionary Narratives of Consumption 4. The Dead Can't Dance and Blood Quantum: Contrasting Indigenous Visions "Feeding" the Zombie Apocalypse 5. Turning Climate Crises into Climate Solutions in Woman at War (2018) 6. Housing, Labor, and Comic Evolutionary Narratives in Sorry to Bother You (2018) 7. Consuming Fast Fashion in The Man in the White Suit and In Fabric Part 3: Environmental Nostalgia, Fuel, and the Carnivalesque 8. Nature Guarding "Her Treasures" in Oil Comedies: Local Hero (1983) Versus Fubar: Balls to the Wall (2010) 9. Disney and Pixar's Cars Franchise: Comic Environmental Nostalgia Versus Simulacra 10. Conclusion: Eco-comedies in Context