Redick Example Blog, note relating Ecology of Eden to a film

If you had a wonderful 90’s childhood, like myself, then you have viewed FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) on more than one occasion in your youth (in my case, at least 10 times each summer until I was 12 years old). However, I recently rewatched this early 90’s classic on a whim (read: I was bored and not writing my blogs) to discover that it is heavily laden with deep ecological viewpoints and much of the same themes that we have covered in our class. If you had a horrible 90’s childhood (or just didn’t get to experience that golden age as a child), I’ll take a moment to catch you up on the plot. FernGully spins a tale of the magical inhabitants of the last rainforest on earth. The movie opens with the spiritual matriarch forest sprite, Magi Lune, telling the creation story of the rainforest. She states that once upon a time, the fairies and humans lived together in complete harmony, providing lovingly for each other’s needs… until bad weather (yes, seriously, just bad weather) scared the humans away. Now, hundreds of years later, the humans are back, but this time not to make friends… to destroy the homes and lives of all the fairies. Chrysta, the main (strong-willed, absent-minded, independent, female) forest sprite discovers the humans are once again in the forest, cutting down all the trees! We are led to believe the humans are killing trees—that can feel pain—for absolutely no reason (and definitely not to build houses of their own), because they are senseless and destructive creatures. The film portrays humans as strictly managers, with absolutely no hope of converting to forest-loving fetishers. Until, of course, one of the humans (ignorant, blond, all-American 90’s teenager Zak) is accidently shrunk to fairy size and shares his ignorant human perspectives with the forest sprites, who teach him how to become more forest and less technology. Only after Zak can experience the pain of the forest for himself and defeat the antagonist, Hexxus (pure evil glob of terror that feeds off the human-caused pollution), are his eye opened to the wonderful world of tree-hugging. After being returned to normal size, Zak promises to run and tell the world about FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

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