Celebrities celebrifying nature: the discursive construction of the human-nature relationship in the ‘Nature Is Speaking’ campaign

ABSTRACT

The nature conservation movement frequently relies on the lustre of celebrity personae to reach out with its message. As role models, celebrities exercise invisible power by representing certain norms and ideas while themselves being subordinate to social structures and discourses. Examining the case of Conservation International’s campaign, Nature Is Speaking, and guided by the methodological framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this study examines how celebrities, in alliance with the conservation movement, (re)produce certain ideas about nature and the human-nature relationship when discursively ‘celebrifying’ nature – turning nature into a ‘celebrity by association’ – by lending their celebrity properties to nature as represented in the campaign. The study identifies three ways of representing nature that the celebrification of nature produces in the campaign: nature as (1) eternal and magnificent, (2) caring and providing, and (3) mighty but delicate. Together these representations constitute a discourse that reproduces certain naturalised values and worldviews connected to the human-nature relationship. The paper concludes that the diversification of celebrity into new fields such as the natural is constitutive of the overall celebritisation of society, and it discusses the implications of the celebrification of nature in terms of reproduction of the human-nature dichotomy and obscuration of the structural aspects of environmental degradation.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental communication
• multimodal critical discourse analysis
• celebrity
• nature conservation
• nature representations

Introduction

Celebrities’ engagement with global politics is not new. With growing awareness of environmental degradation, not least climate change, the involvement of celebrities in the environmental cause has increased since the mid-2000s (Boykoff et al. 2010, Doyle et al. 2017). The interaction between celebrities and nature conservation (e.g. the protection of endangered species) has a longer tradition. Here we find both those who already are famous and lend their fame to the conservation cause, and those who become famous through their conservation work (Brockington 2009). At the same time as celebrities provide a means to gain attention for, engender engagement with, and bring authenticity to the environmental cause, they also ‘enhance their own public image’ (Anderson 2013, p. 341). Although the core message of the conservation movement involves questioning dominant economic interests, it frequently relies on the lustre of celebrity personae to reach out with its message.

The interrelations and alliances between news media, Environmental NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), celebrities and the business sector are indicative of the current environmental governance by decentralisation and the transfer of responsibility to market actors to voluntarily respond to socio-environmental issues (Shamir 2008). This type of decentralised power and responsibilisation is aligned with Foucault’s concept of governmentality, according to which people’s conduct is governed at a distance through various techniques, such as the dissemination of information, education, and advice (Dean 1999). In contemporary society, fame seems to give people authority to speak on various causes, and distance from formal politics tends to lend moral authority and authenticity to the causes (Brockington 2009, Doyle et al. 2017).

Whereas previous research on celebrity conservation has mainly focused on individual celebrities, their agendas, and the potential impacts of their engagement (e.g. Boykoff and Goodman 2009, Boykoff et al. 2010, Doyle et al. 2017), the present article investigates the Conservation International campaign, Nature Is Speaking, featuring actors Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, and Penélope Cruz, among others. Conservation International is an American non-profit environmental organization founded in 1987 with the goal of protecting nature for the benefit of people. In October 2014, Conservation International launched the Nature Is Speaking campaign, consisting of films ‘narrated by nature in the voices of the biggest names in Hollywood’ (Conservation International 2018). Guided by multimodal critical discourse analysis, the study aims to examine how celebrities, in alliance with the conservation movement, (re)produce certain ideas about nature and the human-nature relationship when discursively ‘celebrifying’ nature by lending their celebrity personae and properties to nature as represented in the campaign (Brockington 2009; cf. Goodman and Littler 2013, Nayar 2013).

The article has six sections, including this introduction. The second section accounts for the theoretical framework under two thematic headings: Celebrities and the Celebrification of Nature and The Ambiguous Human-Nature relationship. The third section presents the methodological framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA). The fourth section introduces the materials studied: the 12 films of the Nature Is Speaking campaign. In the fifth section the results are presented. These are thematically structured around the central findings: representations of nature as (1) eternal and magnificent; (2) caring and providing; and (3) mighty but delicate. The final section concludes that the diversification of celebrity into new fields such as the natural is constitutive of the overall celebritisation of society, and it discusses the implications of the celebrification of nature in terms of reproduction of the human-nature dichotomy and obscuration of the structural aspects of environmental degradation.

Theoretical framework

Celebrities and the celebrification of nature

In this study celebrity is conceptualized in two ways: besides defining celebrity as ‘being famous’, which the actors taking part in the campaign undoubtedly are, it regards celebrity as a ‘performative practice’ (Marwick and Boyd 2011, p. 140), that is, as a discursive practice constituted by discursive processes of ‘celebrification’ (Jerslev and Mortensen 2016, p. 2; cf. Driessens 2013). Celebrity is thus not only viewed as a trait of an individual but also as a discursive practice, where celebrity is attributed (Giles 2013).

The constructionist nature of the concept of celebrification implies that fame is not a prerequisite for celebrity; celebrity can be attributed to anyone and anything (Senft 2008). As suggested by Driessens (2013), turning analytical attention to celebrity practices in a diversity of fields will enhance our understanding of celebrity, and Giles (2013) stresses the importance of doing this in emerging contexts such as the non-human world, which is the focus of the present study. When celebrification takes place in the non-human field, a celebrity characteristic such as personalisation simply becomes an ‘anthropomorphic projection’ (Giles 2013, p. 11), that is, an attribution of human characteristics to non-human objects.

The study takes as its point of departure the theoretical assumption that the celebrity of nature is constructed through the identities of human celebrities (cf. Phillipov and Goodman 2017); as the human celebrities performing in the campaign lend their voices to nature and the discursive distinctions between them and nature collapse as a result, the celebrity properties of the human celebrity are transferred to nature (McCracken 1989). Thus, when, for instance, Lupita Nyong’o and Harrison Ford take on the roles of Flower and The Ocean, these nature entities are ‘borrowing’ worth and status from the human celebrities, who are ‘lending’ them these elements (Wright 2015) when attributing to them human qualities and a ‘personality’ (Giles 2013). Thus, nature is discursively constructed as a celebrity by association, which means that constitutive celebrity characteristics such as authenticity, trustworthiness, integrity and beauty pass from the human celebrity to nature as represented in the campaign (McCracken 1989). This is indicated by the fact that the film with Kevin Spacey starring as The Rainforest was removed from the Conservation International’s website and the Nature Is Speaking campaign shortly after the actor’s public downfall after being accused of sexual abuse in October 2017.

In sum, the theoretical point of departure of this study is that celebrification of nature takes place in the Nature Is Speaking campaign through the transfer of human celebrity properties and identities to nature. The analysis revolves around the ways in which the human-nature relationship is discursively constituted through these processes of celebrification (cf. Brockington 2009).

The ambiguous human-nature relationship

The body of research on representations of nature has grown in recent decades. The bulk of this research explores the human-nature relationship in various ways. There are studies, for example, focusing on how the ambiguities of the nature-culture dichotomy are played out in the history of ideas (e.g. Oelschlager 1991, Merchant 2003, Pattberg 2007) and in policy and planning discourses (e.g. Pielke 2005, Uggla 2010). There are also studies of the gendering of nature through parallels between female vs. male and the nature-culture dichotomy (e.g. Merchant 1990).

In the conservation movement, natural scenery and charismatic fauna have frequently been used to draw attention to threatened species and environmental degradation (Lousley 2016). With an emphasis on what we are in the process of losing, scenic depictions of nature have been used to motivate people to act for the environment. Paradoxically, visual representations of amazing animals and epic natural scenery seem to flourish as human lives become increasingly distant from nature. In this course, nature is transformed into ‘spectacle’, to be viewed from a distance, implying increased visibility at the expense of a close relationship (Lousley 2016).

Nature imagery may contribute to an understanding of nature as both pristine, untrodden land and a resource; that is, visual representations of nature may simultaneously allude to the values of a preindustrial, pristine nature, and to the immense importance biodiversity and natural resources have as providers of goods to humans (Hansen and Machin 2013, Uggla 2018). However, repetition of iconic images means that other possible representations are omitted, implying decontextualization; the environment is thus disconnected from the concrete actions and processes causing its decline (Takach 2013).

In accordance with the history of ideas, ecocritical studies of nature representations in movies, novels, poems, and other kinds of media texts evince the ambiguity of human beings’ relationship to nature (e.g., Buell 2005, Garrard 2012). These studies illustrate humans’ deeply ambivalent relationship with nature, which oscillates between romantic devotion to nature and attempts to conquer it. Likewise, this research reflects modern society’s nature-culture dualism, where nature is defined as ‘the other’ in relation to human society and culture.

Studies of biodiversity policy and nature conservation confirm humans’ ambiguous relationship with nature (e.g., Farnham 2007). For example, a study of EU biodiversity policy concludes that this policy includes ‘various partly conflicting themes: humans appreciate and are comforted by nature; humans are dependent on nature; humans both use and destroy nature; and humans care for and restore nature’ (Uggla 2018, p. 117). Although both environmental policy and the notion of nature conservation encompass a wide range of emotions and rationales for nature conservation, the concepts at large are lopsided towards resourcism, which equates nature with its utility for humans (Takacs 1996, Farnham 2007). This utility includes a wide range of benefits and values, such as the goods and resources nature provides and the emotional, recreational, environmental, and economic values it represents.

Methodological framework

In order to analytically capture the ways in which the human-nature relationship is discursively constructed through the celebrification of nature, the methodological framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) was used. The reason for this choice is that MCDA views discourse not only as language in general, but as language as a social practice (Fairclough 1993), which resonates well with the constructionist epistemology of this study. MCDA thus centres on relations between semiotic and other social elements, and the nature of this relationship is regarded as context-dependent; that is, it varies between institutions, organizations, times and places (Fairclough 1993).

If we are to understand what sort of world and what kinds of ideals are (re)produced in the processes of celebrification, we need to pay close attention to the discursive techniques used for celebrity conservation and elucidate ‘what is being hidden by all that is visible’ (Brockington 2009, p. 24), which suggests a qualitative approach. Whereas most qualitative methods for content analysis focus only on written or spoken material, MCDA also pays analytical attention to sound and images. Due to their immediacy, memorability, and salience, images are strong and useful means to communicate about and concretise abstract issues, such as environmental problems, and they have considerable potential to emotionally engage viewers (Keulartz 2007, Joffe 2008). As noted by Carolan (2009) neither images nor texts are neutral, but come imbued with assumptions and values which MCDA aims to decloak by centring on the ways in which language, sound and images interrelate to support certain often taken-for-granted ideas and worldviews (Machin and Mayr 2012). More precisely, the key questions of MCDA are what kinds of identities, actions, and circumstances are concealed, abstracted or foregrounded textually and/or visually, and what are the ideological consequences of these discursive strategies (Machin 2013).

Material and method for data analysis

The material of this study consists of the 12 films from the Nature Is Speaking campaign by Conservation International (Table 1). The films included in the campaign, which represent various elements/aspects of nature through the voice of a celebrity, vary between one and two minutes in length. The selection of actors included in the campaign was based on both their stardom and their long-lasting and/or strong engagement in environmental and conservation issues (Gesenhues 2016). The presentation of the campaign on the website of Conservation International starts with an announcement of the ‘starring’ actors. Below this announcement, each film is introduced with the name of the topical celebrity, ‘Julia Roberts is Mother Nature’, ‘Robert Redford is The Redwood’, etc.

Table 1. Material.

Element/Aspect of nature	Celebrity	Link
Sky	Joan Chen	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Joan-Chen-is-Sky.aspx
Mountain	Lee Pace	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Lee-Pace-Is-Mountain.aspx
The Ocean	Harrison Ford	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Harrison-Ford-Is-the-Ocean.aspx
Flower	Lupita Nyong’o	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Lupita-Nyongo-Is-Flower.aspx
Coral Reef	Ian Somerhalder	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Ian-Somerhalder-Is-Coral-Reef.aspx
The Redwood	Robert Redford	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Robert-Redford-Is-the-Redwood.aspx
Mother Nature	Julia Roberts	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Julia-Roberts-Is-Mother-Nature.aspx
The Soil	Edward Norton	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Edward-Norton-Is-the-Soil.aspx
Water	Penélope Cruz	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/Penelope-Cruz-Is-Water.aspx
Home	Reese Witherspoon	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/pages/reese-witherspoon-is-home.aspx
Ice	Liam Neeson	https://www.conservation.org/nature-is-speaking/Pages/liam-neeson-is-ice.aspx
The Rainforest	Kevin Spacey	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsva6HxIpHw

The 12 films were analysed by means of an MCDA carried out in a two-step process suggested by Machin and Mayr (2012):

1. Representation analysis, which focuses on how the participants in the films – in this case nature and humans – are represented.

2. Transitivity analysis, which pays attention to the doings of participants, that is, to who does things (active party), and who has things done to them (afflicted party), as well as to ascriptions of responsibility and blame.

For the analysis of representations and transitivity, we developed an analytical ‘toolbox’ (Table 2) drawing on the MCDA concepts suggested by Machin and Mayr (2012). In order to thoroughly capture the meaning-bearing elements of the moving images, this toolbox was supplemented with some of the methodological devices of film studies (e.g. Bordwell and Thompson 2012; cf. Mörner and Olausson 2017). These analytical devices have been systematically applied to each film in the Nature Is Speaking campaign with the purpose of detecting the discursive strategies used in the films and their implications for the construction of meaning.

Table 2. Analytical devices.

Analytical object	Analytical device	Analytical focus
Text/Speech	Word connotations	Connotations of the words that the producer has chosen (intentionally or unintentionally).
	Suppression or lexical absence	Verbal/written information that is suppressed or absent.
	Structural oppositions	Use of contrasting elements such as young-old, good-bad, etc.
	Personification/Objectification	Strategies of personifying one participant but creating a distance to the other by objectifying them.
	Pronouns	Use of pronouns like ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘them’ (commonly used to align audiences with or against particular ideas).
	Individualisation/Collectivisation	Strategies of individualising one participant while describing the other as a generic group.
	Nomination/Functionalisation	Strategies of nomination, where actors are described in terms of what they are, and functionalisation, where actors are described in terms of what they do.
	Metaphors	Use of metaphorical language.
Moving images	Attributes	Visualisation of particular objects.
	Settings	Visualisation of particular settings.
	Salience	Features that are made to stand out visually, e.g., size, colour, tone, focus.
	Exclusion	Attributes and settings that are visually absent.
	Close ups	Strategies of camera close ups.
	Music, sound, and tone of voice	Use of soundtrack.
	Camera movements	Strategies of camera movement, such as panning.
	Editing	Use of editing techniques such as slow/fast motion.

In order to ensure the transparency and systematics of the analytical procedure, that is, to make visible for the sake of reliability the connection between analytical concepts, the empirical material, and interpretations, the operation of the analytical concepts is explicit throughout the analysis, and interpretations are supported by quotations that are typical of the material (Tracy 2010).

Results

This section presents the analysis of the ways in which the human-nature relationship is discursively constituted through the celebrification of nature in the Nature Is Speaking campaign. It is thematically structured around the central findings: representations of nature as (1) eternal and magnificent; (2) a caring provider; and (3) mighty but delicate.

Nature as eternal and magnificent

The films in the campaign feature two actors: nature, including its various entities as represented in the films, personalized by the celebrities, who lend their voice to it, with the pronoun ‘I’; and all of humankind, collectivised in an all-embracing and distancing ‘you’. The antagonistic rift between the two forms the basis of the storyline; nature is ascribed the discursive characteristics of the protagonist, and humankind the characteristics of the antagonist, as exemplified in the following statement from one of the films:

… now your cars, your factories and dust, they have pushed me past the limit. (Sky [Joan Chen], emphasis in original)

Despite references to nature’s limits – as illustrated in the above quotation – a pronounced feature of the campaign is that nature, through strategies of nomination, is constructed in terms of what it is, an eternal, magnificent being, rather than in terms of what it does. The films are mainly set in diverse natural landscapes of great beauty – seemingly untouched by humans – and montages of panning shots of softly floating clouds, lush rainforests, vibrant underwater terrain, and starry skies, along with fateful sounding music on the soundtrack that lends an almost sacred quality to nature. The various aspects of nature (water, sky, coral reef, etc.) and the diversity of natural landscapes in various ways exhibit the beauty and splendour of nature. For example, The Redwood [Robert Redford] displays these characteristics in close-ups of sunlit vegetation and epic sceneries of the forest landscape, Water [Penélope Cruz] shows them in close-ups of streaming water glittering of sunshine and impressive waterfalls, and Coral Reef [Ian Somerhalder] in an explosion of bright colours of corals and fish. Along a cascade of blooming flowers, the beauty of nature is explicitly addressed by Flower [Lupita Nyong’o]:

I am a flower. Yes, I’m beautiful. I’ve heard it before. And it never grows old. I’m worshiped for my looks, my scent, my looks.

When actors such as Robert Redford, Penélope Cruz, Ian Somerhalder and Lupita Nyong’o, all renowned for their beauty,¹ star as nature they contribute to the aestheticisation of nature. Furthermore, when the mega stars Penélope Cruz and Lupita Nyong’o, alongside the ‘glamorous, transcultural’ star Joan Chen (Zhang 2014, p. 96) – all of whom awarded prestigious prices – merge their identities with nature through the pronouns ‘I’and ‘me’, they not only discursively transfer their worth and status as celebrities to nature but also their ethnic origins (Cruz originates from Spain, Chen from China, and Nyong’o from Mexico/Kenya). In these processes of celebrification it is metaphorically implied, through the non-whiteness of these celebrities, that the beauty, splendour and omnipresence of nature is built on diversity (e.g. Wing-Fai and Willis 2014, Dosekun 2016).

Mountain [Lee Pace] is an illustrative example of nature’s eternal and magnificent character, when he metaphorically claims ‘I am nature’s oldest temple’, while the state of simply and persistently ‘being’ is underscored by visual attributes such as snowcapped mountains against a background of blue sky and quickly moving clouds, all of which signify pristine, everlasting nature. Similarly, as exemplified in the quotation below, nature is nominated as omnipresent – existing everywhere and at all times:

I start as rain in the mountains. Flow to the rivers and streams. And end up in the ocean. Then the cycle begins again. (Water [Penélope Cruz])

If nature is nominated in terms of what it is rather than what it does, humans, on the other hand, are functionalised, that is, represented in terms of what they do to innocent, afflicted nature. They are, however, largely absent from the films, both visually and audibly, and it is through the voice of nature that we get to know about their actions. Ice [Liam Neeson] serves to exemplify this when stating that ‘humans keep warming this planet’, while providing visual ‘evidence’ in terms of attributes such as large blocks of ice dissolving in flowing water. As these scenes run onscreen, the soundtrack underpins the destructive character of human actions with increasing intensity of the background music and the addition of a dramatic tone. In a similar fashion, Coral Reef [Ian Somerhalder] accuses humans of destroying him with their conscious actions: ‘ … you tear me apart with dynamite and poison me with cyanide.’ Through discursive strategies like these, nature is depicted as the innocent, afflicted party to whom evil is done by a villainous humankind constructed as the active agent and, as such, ascribed responsibility and blame.

Notwithstanding its ascribed role as afflicted and innocent, nature is hardly constructed as a victim in the films. Instead, a discursive element of asymmetry is added to the antagonistic relationship between nature and humans. Nature is constructed as superior to humans simply due to its eternal and invincible character; in other words, nature has existed forever and will continue to do so regardless of the actions of human beings. Long-lasting Hollywood star Julia Roberts brings trustworthiness and authority to nature when she lends her well-known voice to Mother Nature proclaiming nature’s persistence:

How you choose to live each day, whether you regard or disregard me, doesn’t really matter to me … I am nature. I will go on. I am prepared to evolve. (Mother Nature [Julia Roberts])

The interplay of text and images effectively serves to construct the magnificent and imperishable character of nature along with nature’s superiority to and independence from human beings. This is done in the film Mother Nature, for example, which is set in frost-nipped mountain landscapes, underwater terrain with plants interspersed by rays of sunlight, and, as it seems, endless rainforests. The salience of attributes such as these, together with the panning camera and the soft classical music of string instruments, strengthens the impression of magnificent invincibility. This construction of nature is further underscored by verbal strategies of structural opposition, where the temporality and overall insignificance of humans is used as a contrast.

I’ve been here for over four and a half billion years. 22,500 times longer than you. I don’t really need people. (Mother Nature [Julia Roberts])

Through discursive strategies such as these, humans are separated from nature in the construction of nature as eternal and magnificent, and represented as fundamentally negligible from the point of view of nature’s everlasting omnipresence.

Nature as caring and providing

Above it was demonstrated how an asymmetric relationship between nature and humanity is constructed, with nature as the superior, independent party by virtue of its omnipresence and immortality. In contrast, human beings are depicted as inferior and dependent on nature for their very existence as is forcefully underscored at the end of each film by the written text ‘Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature.’ As illustrated by the quotation below, the overall message is that the elements of nature are essential for life on earth.

I am the ocean. I’m water. I’m most of this planet. I shaped it. Every stream, every cloud and every rain drop, it all comes back to me. One way or another, every living thing here needs me. I’m the source. (The Ocean [Harrison Ford])

In this way, nature is constructed as the foundation and source of all life, as well as the indispensable provider of essentials, such as water, clean air, and soil, all of which humans depend on for their survival. As tersely expressed by The Soil [Edward Norton]: ‘Without me humans could not exist.’ In the film The Ocean, imagery of vast expanses of water reinforces the eternal and omnipresent character of nature, while the severity of the message of humans’ dependency is made salient by Harrison Ford’s deep, gravelly voice, the fateful sound of wind and waves, and the dark imagery. When Ford, who undoubtedly carries a great deal of celebrity currency, lends his celebrity persona to nature, his celebrity characteristics of trustworthiness and authority – obtained not least through his heroic parts as Han Solo (Star Wars) and Indiana Jones – pass to nature through processes of celebrification (Fleming and Knee 2019).

The severe message underlying nature’s indispensability for human beings recurs in the campaign, as exemplified below by Coral Reef.

I am the nursery of the sea. Little fish depend on me for food and to hide from big fish. And guess who eats the big fish? That’s right. You do. (Coral Reef [Ian Somerhalder])

Notwithstanding the seriousness of this message, nature’s caring qualities are emphasised by the notion of the coral reef as a nursery and by close-ups of small fish hiding among the corals. These nurturing characteristics are further strengthened by the soft voice of Ian Somerhalder, who has a public persona that combines fame with both activism and intimacy with his many followers in social media (Hunting and Hinck 2017).

However, it is not only through grave speech, dark imagery, fateful sounds or soft talk about shelter and care that nature as essential provider is constructed. In the film The Rainforest, the tone used to underline nature’s indispensability and humans’ dependency is both dismissive and ironic:

I’ve always been there for them. And I have been more than generous. Sometimes I gave it all to them. Now gone forever. But humans, they’re so smart. So smart. Such big brains and opposable thumbs. They know how to make things. Amazing things. Now, why would they need an old forest like me anymore? Jungles? Trees? Well, they do breathe air. And I make air. Have they thought about that? Humans, so smart. They’ll figure it out. Humans making air. That’ll be fun to watch. (The Rainforest [Kevin Spacey])

Here, the construction of nature as provider is based on the ‘othering’ of humans with the pronoun ‘them’, where nature is represented in terms of its excellence (I make air) and generosity (I gave it all to them), whereas humans are belittled with irony and sarcasm (Humans making air. That’ll be fun to watch). This sarcasm and diminishing of human abilities is underlined by an arrogant tone in Kevin Spacey’s voice. The fact that Kevin Spacey since long is a high-profile actor as well as Artistic director of the Old Vic tends to bring the authority nature needs to patronise humans in this way, and some of his onscreen characteristics – not least as Frank Underwood in the Netflix series House of Cards – pass to The Rainforest in the shape of self-sufficiency and sarcasm. In addition to the emphasis on its overall essentiality and excellence as a provider of humankind’s essential needs, nature is also represented as a provider of all sorts of goods, for example, wood, food and medicine, and this benevolent and caring side of nature is constructed by various metaphors. For example, in the film The Sky [Joan Chen], nature represents itself as ‘a warm protective blanket wrapped around everyone on earth’. The allusion to care and protection is underlined by the tender voice of Joan Chen, soft music, and a panning shot of sunlit clouds covering a mountain range from above. In another film, nature is compared to ‘home’ and the comfort and shelter it provides.

I am home. I give you comfort. I shelter your family. See me for who I am. Home, sweet home. I am your refuge. I am the floor that supports you. The foundation that keeps you steady. The walls that give you shelter. The roof that protects you. I am your home. (Home [Reese Witherspoon])

Alongside the overarching metaphor of nature as home, this film includes additional metaphors, all of which allude to care and protection. The metaphorical language is reinforced by various visual attributes, for example, a cottage in a snowy forest landscape (comfort), a cave in a barren landscape (shelter), soil with a fast-motion budding plant (floor), a shot of a mangrove starting above the water and panning down to the roots beneath the surface (foundation), a narrow underwater path between steep coral reefs (walls), and a starry night sky (roof). The allusion to care and protection is also underlined in this film by tender femininity conveyed by Reese Witherspoon’s soft voice and the quiet music.

Nature’s role as provider is not restricted to physical matters such as goods and protection. In the film Flower, through the use of metaphorical language and by letting the camera zoom in on various flowers unfolding in fast motion, nature becomes a cultural resource – providing symbolic alternatives for words.

And sometimes I feed their souls. I am their words when they have none. I say ‘I love you’, without a sound. ‘I am sorry’, without a voice. (Flower [Lupita Nyong’o])

It is worth noting that the discursive construction of nature contains some ambiguous features. On the one hand, nature is constructed as essential and independent. On the other hand, nature is constructed as a provider of goods, implying that human needs determine the value of nature. Thus, the whole idea of nature as provider is based on an anthropocentric discourse. The message that nature has no intrinsic value beyond providing humans with what they need is evident when Coral Reef [Ian Somerhalder] claims that ‘I’m the protein factory for the world’ (our emphasis). The word ‘factory’ strongly connotes industrial mass production for the purpose of human consumption.

In sum, when nature is constructed as a caring provider, human dependency on nature constitutes the basic message. Benevolent and caring nature is represented as the source of everything, providing resources such as clean air and goods such as medicine, as well as shelter and cultural symbols. In this way, the construction of nature is saturated by anthropocentric discourse revolving around human needs.

Nature as mighty but delicate

As demonstrated above, nature is portrayed as eternal, self-sufficient, and a provider of all kinds of material and cultural necessities. Yet another way to represent nature is by allusion to its overwhelming might and its capacity to take everything away from humans. Although this discursive feature is discernible in all films, it is Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson in particular – in their capacity as well-known action heroes – that pass integrity, power and ability to take action to nature – as illustrated by the quotation below.

I covered this entire planet once. And I can always cover it again. That’s all I have to say. (The Ocean [Harrison Ford])

In the films, the power of nature is metaphorically constructed by visual attributes such as thunder storms, calving icebergs and breaking waves, accompanied by the sound of thunder, as well as in verbal statements of what nature is able to accomplish. Thus, in contrast to the nomination strategies that constructed nature as simply a ‘being’ afflicted by devastating human actions, nature is here functionalised in terms of what in fact it is capable of doing to humans. Nature’s agency is sometimes constructed in terms of a nature that sends warnings to humanity about environmental disaster. For example, when Ice [Liam Neeson]), proclaims: ‘I try to warn you. I send pieces of me thundering into the ocean. You do nothing. I raise sea levels. You do nothing.’, but sometimes also in terms of a nature that threatens humanity with total destruction, as shown in the following quotation.

My oceans. My soil. My flowing streams. My forests. They can all take you. Or leave you. (Mother Nature [Julia Roberts], emphasis in original)

Mother Nature’s message about the tremendous power of nature is further reinforced by the increasingly threatening tone in Julia Roberts’s voice, as well as by the emphasis on ‘all’, which constructs the understanding that each and every element of nature has the capacity to destroy humanity. In addition, the emphasis on ‘my’ connotes a defensive response to humanity’s implicit claim of ownership of nature, and through strategies of structural opposition (you-me) the underlying understanding of humans as external to nature is further underscored. When Roberts gives voice to Mother Nature several of her celebrity properties discursively transfer to nature and lend legitimacy and trustworthiness to nature’s claims. Her longstanding fame, and environmentally engaged onscreen persona Erin Brockovich contribute to this.

In the construction of nature’s might and infinite power to destroy the natural conditions on which humans depend, the imagery also plays a vital role. For instance, in the film The Soil, the camera lingers on land covered with dust that suddenly is swept away in massive clouds by the wind, leaving barren fields as the result.

As demonstrated above, when humans are discursively functionalised as the ‘doers’, they are also ascribed the role of the antagonist – the villain. However, the same is not the case when nature is assigned powerful agency; instead, through the pronoun ‘they’, humans are objectified, collectivised and in a sense dehumanised as distant others who deserve every bit of what is coming to them in terms of nature’s (still personified as ‘I’) retribution. In this way, nature maintains its role as the protagonist of the story, and humanity as a whole, without discrimination, its role as villain, to which responsibility and blame are ascribed. Through the objectification and collectivisation of humans as completely external to nature, the vindictive and unyielding power of nature is forcefully underscored. The following quotation from The Ocean illustrates the blaming and discrediting of humans at the same time as nature declares its power.

I give, they take. But I can always take back. That’s just the way it’s always been. It’s not their planet anyway, never was, never will be … But humans they take more than their share. They poison me, then they expect me to feed them. Well it doesn’t work that way. (The Ocean [Harrison Ford])

However, the depiction of nature is ambiguous. The powerful and self-sufficient nature is sometimes contrasted with a fragile, delicate nature that is poisoned, polluted and sick, as exemplified in the quotation from The Soil [Edward Norton]: ‘But I am broken, aching, overused, sick. Because of you’. The human consequences of the deteriorating state of nature are also implied in the imagery, for instance, in the film Sky, by the visual shift of setting from pristine natural scenery to the silhouette of a city where a greyish haze effectively covers buildings, sky and sun.

The contrast between mighty and fragile nature implies that several environmental discourses may function as interpretative repertoires and intersect in the same context. The vulnerable side of nature, however, is not connected to the survival of nature itself, only to its capacity to sustain humanity. When this is expressed by Home in the quotation below, the anthropocentric view of nature and its instrumental value reappear, with the preservation of humanity being the sole reason for restoring the health of nature.

If you don’t take care of me, I cannot take care of you. (Home [Reese Witherspoon], emphasis in original)

The recurrent themes in the films construct a storyline, with the entrance of humans as a turning point. First, and for a very long time, nature was developing and refining herself into perfect balance. Then, humans came along. Nature provided all sorts of goods, but humans only cared about themselves and took more than their share, destroying nature. Now, nature is polluted and sick, but also fed up. Nature is out of control and sends warnings to humans, but humans do not seem to listen – they do nothing. The future is open; will humans learn and save nature and thereby themselves, or will they create their own destruction?

The quotation below is from the only film in the campaign that includes a human being who is directly involved in the construction of the story. In this case it is the voice of a child, connoting innocence. In a Western context, children are generally perceived as pure and close to nature (Machin 2007, p. 36), and so the objectification of the rest of humanity – ‘they’ – continues. The conversation between The Redwood – voiced by Robert Redford, one of few male stars who has succeeded in merging a romantic onscreen persona with masculinity and activism (Wright 2016) – and the kid is a condensation of the storyline of the whole campaign. In the first part of the film, nature, represented by The Redwood, is praised for being ‘so smart’ and well-functioning for so long. The conversation then continues:

R:

Then, all of a sudden, there were humans. And all hell broke loose.

Kid:

Why? What did the humans do?

R:

Well, they changed wolves into dogs, rivers into lakes, and us into wood. They started using the planet like it was put there just for them. Act like they’ve got an extra one laying around.

Kid:

Why do they do that? Why don’t they understand?

R:

I don’t know. If they don’t figure out that they’re part of nature rather than just using nature, they probably won’t be around see you grow up. (The Redwood [Robert Redford])

The verbally expressed age and wisdom of The Redwood is underlined by Robert Redford’s calm, deep voice and correspond to the legendary actor’s notable life experience, something that lends ethos and trustworthiness to The Redwood’s answers. The fact that Redford was singled out by Times Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world in 2014 (Gibbs 2014) alongside the actor’s longstanding environmental engagement (Anderson 2013) add authenticity and credibility to the message. Moreover, the apparent similarity between ‘Redford’ and ‘Redwood’ further diminishes the discursive distance between them and contribute in the process of turning nature into a ‘celebrity by association’. The child’s innocence is accentuated by the kid’s high voice and how she distances herself from the destruction by asking why ‘they’ (humans) act the way they do.

Thus, the contrasting representations of nature as both mighty and fragile convey the message that nature is fully able to strike back against its victimisers, humankind. Admittedly, human action does inflict harm upon nature, but in the end, the brunt of environmental devastation will fall on humans; nature itself will remain. After all, everything was fine until the distant ‘other’ – humanity – arrived, and it will be so again.

Discussion and conclusion

In this study it was theoretically argued that the celebrification of nature is discursively constructed by association with the human celebrities, who not only lend their voices but also pass their celebrity properties to nature. In this way, the analytical focus on celebrification practices and implications was moved from the social (human) to the natural (non-human) field. This move is prompted by the increasingly blurred lines between the social and the natural caused by environmental devastation, and it serves as an example of the diversification of celebrity, which, according to Driessens (2013), is emblematic of the current move towards celebrity being produced in increasingly diverse fields. Studying celebrity in a non-human context allows us, as Giles (2013) argued, to reduce celebrity to its basic constituents, since the various nature entities ‘do nothing but act as conduit for our fantasies and desires, whether of divination or of doting siblinghood; the purity and innocence of living beings without human sin, artifice or careerist motives’ (p. 125, italics in original).

The diversification of celebrity into new fields such as the natural is constitutive of the overall celebritisation of society and is fuelled by the profound shifts in the overall media ecology in recent years (Boykoff and Goodman 2009, Driessens 2013). In the current case the impact of mediatisation processes – not least through the proliferation of social media – should not be underestimated. Network society has fostered a ‘participatory culture’ of ‘prod-using’ and sharing (Jenkins 2009), which has drastically changed the conditions for public discourse on nature and the environment. The success of a campaign such as this one to a large extent hinges on its capacity to go viral, and the Nature Is Speaking campaign was forcefully marketed on Twitter under the hashtag #NatureIsSpeaking, as well as on other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, G+, Vine, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Tumblr (Harman 2014). In April 2016, the films included in the campaign had been viewed more than 49 million times across 40 countries in 10 languages, garnering more than 2.3 billion total impressions, and simultaneously raised millions of dollars for conservation (Conservation International 2018).

Nature conservation is embedded in networks of conservation NGOs, market actors and celebrities. Celebrities contribute to the conservation agenda by attracting attention (Driessens 2013) and thereby raising money for the sake of nature conservation. At the same time, celebrities enhance their own value and credibility with this type of engagement in alliance with the conservation movement, because they are portrayed by the media as ‘do-gooders’ (Brockington 2009, Andersson 2013, Partzsch 2015). In this way their own economic value as commodities is enhanced.

The celebrification of nature in the Nature Is Speaking campaign forms a discourse that reproduces certain naturalised ideas, values, and worldviews connected to the human-nature relationship. The analysis presented here identified three ways of representing nature that jointly constitute this discourse: nature as (1) eternal and magnificent; (2) a caring provider; and (3) mighty but delicate. In accordance with numerous previous studies, the study reveals discursive processes of othering in the construction of the human-nature relationship, that is, identity constructions where humans and nature are separated and dichotomised, thereby reproducing the naturalised idea about a divide between nature and culture. The campaign plays with the modern notion of conscious human agency versus unconscious nature. Efforts to explain human consciousness and the uniqueness of humans and human character, frequently do so by putting humans in relation to nature, defined as the other, with humans as the superior party (Uggla 2010, Mörner and Olausson 2017). In contrast, the celebrification of nature in the Nature Is Speaking campaign works in terms of ‘reversed’ othering, where it is nature that takes the lead and is represented as superior, and it is nature that is endorsed by the status, authenticity, trustworthiness, integrity and beauty the celebrities bring into the campaign. Regardless of this reversed character of the discursive construction of the other, it still reinforces the naturalised idea of a vast rift between nature and humans, which in its essence contributes to the environmental exploitation that the campaign aims to address. The nature-culture dichotomy, which is discursively reproduced by the celebrification of nature, forms a hegemonic discourse that ‘serves not only to justify exploitative views and practices, but also to divorce humans from the knowledge that they are, in fact, part of nature themselves’ (Milstein 2009, p. 27).

In the celebrification of nature in the campaign, the blame for destroying nature – for making it sick and polluted – is ascribed to humanity as a generic collective of individuals. This simultaneous universalisation and individualisation of responsibility implies that each and every person is equally responsible for both environmental degradation and its remediation. This obscures not only issues of environmental justice, but also the pivotal role to be played by political institutions and global industry alike in addressing environmental devastation. In addition, the causes of nature’s alleged sickness are consistently omitted. The repetition of iconic images alluding to ‘natural’ nature as an amazing place devoid of humans is based on a romantic gaze and an aestheticisation of nature, which in turn imply decontextualisation, disconnecting the environment from the concrete actions and processes causing its decline (Brockington 2009, Takach 2013).

In the celebrification of nature, various environmental discourses are used as interpretative repertoires. This intersection of various discourses is elucidated by the campaign’s ambiguous features that identify humankind as both destroyer and potential rescuer, and wilderness or ‘natural’ nature as both threat and refuge. Although the story is partly ambiguous, the overall message is subsumed beneath the more or less hegemonic discourse of sustainable development. Left out of this discourse, however, is a central element of the various guises of the ‘green critique’, namely criticism of the notion of commercial and industrial progress itself (Hajer and Fischer 1999, p. 2). It advocates for more, not less, modernisation, responding to criticism of contemporary society with a modernistic answer involving research, technological innovation, market forces, and so on. By refraining from addressing the structural aspects of environmental degradation, new visions of socio-environmental futures that would actually tackle the root of the problem – the exploitative logic of the capitalist system (in which celebrity as a social phenomenon is intrinsically entangled) – are effectively repressed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Swedish Research Council Formas under Grant number FR-2016/0005.

Notes on contributors

Ulrika Olausson

Ulrika Olausson,PhD, Professor and Research Leader of Media and Communication Studies at Jönköping University in Sweden, has been involved in research on media representations of the environment since 2005. She has published extensively in journals such as Journalism Studies, European Journal of Communication, and Environmental Communication, and is currently (2017–2019) leading a research project on nature representations in social media. Olausson’s theoretical interests lie within the areas of globalization, global risks, and political identity.

Ylva Uggla

Ylva Uggla, PhD, is Professor of Sociology, at Örebro University in Sweden. Uggla’s research concerns environmental regulation and management, including environmental communication. Methodologically her research draws on discourse, framing and narrative analysis, with a specific interest in allocation of responsibility and the construction of identities.

Notes

1. Robert Redford is known as the ‘all-American golden boy’ (Wright 2016) and Penélope Cruz as a ‘beauty icon’ (https://www.pinterest.se/pin/56618698437383277/retrieved, 20 March 2019). Ian Somerhalder has gained attention as ‘incredibly good looking’ (https://www.pinterest.es/pin/295900637989402209/retrieved, 20 March 2019), and in 2014 Lupita Nyong’o was awarded for her beauty in People Magazine.