#5 WHO CAN “DO” SCIENCE/FICTION? A Decolonial Reading of Beasts of the Southern Wild

This is the fifth lecture for the 2024 summer session of ENGLISH 3372 for The Ohio State University, taught by PhD Candidate Peyton Del Toro. This lecture breaks down the viewing of the week: Beasts of the Southern Wild directed by Benh Zeitlin. The Bathtub is a fictional place in a fictional moment that represents a multitude of places and temporalities. It is not necessarily any particular area, nor is it any particular hurricane. The film’s director, Benh Zeitlin, and his crew immersed themselves in Louisiana bayou communities to capture the unique culture, landscape, and challenges faced by the residents. But rather than a quick news story with fleeting relevancy that brings attention as quickly as it moves onto the next, this fictional story is timeless. In Louisiana, unless a city is significantly impacted, hurricanes often receive minimal attention and support. Jason Farman has written extensively about how digital media and mobile technologies have transformed our engagement with news and information. The advent of digital and mobile technologies has led to a demand for immediate news updates through real-time reporting on social media platforms, which has changed how news is gathered and disseminated. Furthermore, Farman has articulated the way the “attention economy” has impacted what is deemed worthy of attention, or in other words, what will people keep watching so that the platform’s revenue increases. The competition for viewers' attention in a saturated media environment has led news organizations to focus on sensationalism and clickbait headlines to drive traffic and engagement, often resulting in a compromise in the depth and quality of news reporting. But rather than a quick news story with fleeting relevancy that brings attention as quickly as it moves onto the next, the fictional story of Beasts of the Southern Wild remains timeless. It is a story of always-becoming indigenous to an ever-changing Earth, finding community amongst all beings in the midst of precarious times.