WST 3015
Nina Perez
April 14, 2010
An Eco-Feminist Analysis of FernGully: The Last Rainforest
FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a children’s film with a strong ecological message. The plot of the movie focuses on a young fairy, Crysta, who is learning, under the tutelage of a “fairy godmother”-like figure named Magi, to use her powers to protect the forest. She is shown as being extremely curious about her surroundings, to the point of being naïve and reckless about her own well-being. While she is exploring, she sees a human being named Zach, a city boy who is employed by a logging company, marking trees with spray paint to be cut down. Through an accident caused by her lack of self-confidence and control over her innate powers, Crysta shrinks him down to fairy size.
FernGully: The Last Rainforest clearly demonstrates a “deep ecology” theme, which is referred to in the text as being “at its worst, a rather simplistic view of the world in which nature is ‘good’ and people are ‘bad’…[some deep ecologists] are more interested in saving the earth than safeguarding the human population” (Kirk). As humans are clearly shown as being evil, and their efforts to develop the land is viewed in a strong negative light, the deep ecology theme is evident.
Gender roles are obviously constructed throughout the piece. Nature is clearly depicted as female – Magi, Crysta’s teacher and mother figure, is depicted as many people probably envision Mother Nature to look like, with a flowery, flowing dress, long grey hair, just enough wrinkles to look “wise” but not necessarily “old”, and obviously still with the vestiges of attractiveness.
Humans are shown as being stupid, sloppy, completely ignorant of what they are destroying, and, perhaps most importantly, entirely male. All of the humans in the entire movie are males. The males within the fairies are depicted as being somewhat slovenly as well, and the most memorable scene with male fairies involves a group of them attempting to convince Crysta to forget about her studies with Magi and blow her off, even though she is training to be the protector of the forest where they live. Clearly, because Magi and Crysta are female, the responsibility of keeping up the forest must fall on them. “The virgin, feminized wilderness is vulnerable, innocent, and weak” (Kirk) and must be protected, because the men of the forest aren’t going to help.
The personification of the human’s destructive efforts, Hexxus, a smog-like creature and the main antagonist of the film, is a male as well. The human’s motivation for their actions is avarice, they are either ignorant of or ambivalent towards the land they are destroying, and only care about the money they earn. However, Hexxus actually enjoys the destruction, and considers the humans to be his ally, as he sings: "Cause greedy human beings will always lend a hand, with the destruction of this worthless jungle land, and what a beautiful machine they have provided, to slice a path of doom with my foul breath to guide it" (FernGully).
The film is a benign bit of environmental propaganda for children, and is presented as such with no apology. The only issue that I had with this is that the movie shows no clear “action item” for the viewer to walk away with – the message is “protect trees”…but how? At the end, Zach walks away with his logging co-workers, the other humans, and is overheard saying to them, “Guys…things gotta change” (FernGully). Is this it? How will he go about that change? I’m not sure if viewers are supposed to be left with the impression that one person can be a messenger and make a difference, or if that part is just left ambivalent. I think the movie could have been more effective with some more expository narrative about what Zach was planning to do to affect change.
Works Cited
FernGully: The Last Rainforest. Dir. Bill Kroyer. Screenplay by Jim Cox. 20th Century Fox, 1992. DVD.
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women and the Environment." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 535-48.
Every interesting. I never noticed that on top of the male humans being anti-nature that even the male fairies try to act as a distraction to the female trying to protect their forest. It was also funny to me that they have to try to turn it into a love story as well between Crysta and Zach. On top of everything else, it turns into a way of romanticizing nature and Zach's experience with it.
ReplyDeleteI loved the film, but I'd hesitate to point out that it doesn't give its viewers a point of action. It is true that Zach tells his co-workers that "things have got to change," but this doesn't have to be as vague as it seems. Instead of an aimless goal, the director is probably encouraging the audience to have conversations about conservation, be it with class mates, co-workers, family members, etc.
ReplyDeleteI loved your analysis though. I never really realized that all the oppressive roles were male roles, and that nature, like the women characters, were pretty helpless. Way to go.