‘Animals Sell Papers’: The Value of Animal Stories

Abstract

The continued proliferation of animal images across every area of pop­ular media is both undeniable and inescapable. Indeed, animal nar­ratives are widely dispersed throughout our daily interactions with popular media forms and have become established as well- recognized and easily consumable genres of entertainment, news and advertising. Vast numbers of animal videos, often tagged as ‘cute’, ‘funny’ or ‘baby’, as well as ‘animal attack’ clips populate social networking web sites. That so many of these animal videos ‘go viral’ and attract millions of online views suggests that our appetite for particular types of animal imagery is voracious. Pet programmes, wildlife films, natural history documentaries and specialist channels such as National Geographic and Discovery testify to the ongoing attraction of animal-based narra­tives in television whilst a snapshot of the box office figures, in main­stream cinema, for the first decade of the twenty-first century gives an indication of the popularity of animal stories, with at least one animal film appearing in the ten highest grossing films each year from 2001 to 2009.¹ Whilst box office returns reflect the enduring popularity of animal narratives, they also make apparent the economic dimension of such representations: animal stories are profitable.