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Planetary health

Sickness, the environment and air in film

Bibliographic Data

ID22222363
AuthorsTatiana Prorokova (0000-0002-0458-191X, University of Vienna, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume5
Issue2
Pages245-261
Publication date2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Environmental Media (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2632-2463 • E-ISSN: 2632-2471
PublisherIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/jem_00103_1
OpenAlexW4392601389
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic reminds us that human and more-than-human health is connected to environmental (un)health. This article explores the linkages between health and the environment in cinema. It draws on such issues as pandemics, pollution and air to illustrate how films like Wolfgang Petersen’s Outbreak (1995), Todd Haynes’s Safe (1995), M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (2008), Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) and Colm McCarthy’s The Girl with All the Gifts (2016), each in their unique ways, address the problem of planetary health. Airborne zoonoses, monstrous plants, toxic fungi and pollution – the films tackle all these issues to emphasize invisible danger, toxicity and sickness that surround humans and more-than-humans alike. Connecting the ideas of health and well-being to the environment and illustrating how this nexus becomes visible in film, specifically through air, this article calls for justice, consideration and care of planetary health. Explicating the tight linkages between pandemics, climate change and environmental degradation at large, as depicted in the selected cinematic examples, this article claims that the recognition of humanity’s dependence on and responsibility for more-than-humans is crucial in times of environmental and health crises

Astrobiology · Geography · Meteorology · Physics · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Environmental Science

  • The plane

    Open Access•Tatiana Prorokova•Cogent Arts and Humanities•2025

  • Pandemic Literature

    Open Access•Suhail Abdul Rub P•International Journal of English…•2020

  • Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change

    Open Access•Camilo Mora, Tristan McKenzie et al.•Nature Climate Change•2022

  • The coughing body

    Open Access•Nik Brown, Sarah Nettleton et al.•BioSocieties•2021

  • A Breath of Fresh Air

    Open Access•Margaret S Kennedy•Victorian Literature and Culture•2017

  • What Ever is Happening to M. Night Shyamalan

    Murray Pomerance•Film International•2010

  • The chronopolitics of the Anthropocene

    Open Access•Dipesh Chakrabarty•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2021

Unique citing works1
Citations per year1
Citation span2025 - 2025 (1)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 1

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