Postcolonial Fears and Post-Apocalyptic Imagery in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
Keywords:
Affect, Animation, Anthropocene, Colonialism, Hybridity, RelationalityAbstract
Fantasies of (post-)apocalypse are both a product and a producer of the Anthropocene, reproducing the concerns and fears that populate our unconscious imaginary, while providing us with unrealistic and inefficient solutions to current crises. Nevertheless, apocalyptic films can prompt us to yearn for something different, conceiving the disaster not as an ending, but as the beginning of a new world. The aim of this paper is to examine the series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts from a postcolonial perspective claiming its initial premise reflects current western fears of reverse invasion and colonization. Through the inversion of human/animal hierarchies, this series interrogates the legacies of colonialism within our Anthropocene present. However, unlike other post-apocalyptic narratives, this series presents a hopeful resolution to these fears by using restorative notions of hybridization and more-than-human relationality to create a post-anthropocentric society that embraces change and becoming as their core values.
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