Revealing and concealing oil: the hidden screen industry of animated petroleum films

Abstract

This article explores the use of animation with oil industries and considers the various ways this could be understood as a ‘Hidden Screen Industry’. This article begins by reviewing relevant literature in animation studies and environmental and energy humanities to understand why this industry and the films arising from it have been largely hidden from scholarly work at the intersection of the two fields of study. Following this, it examines the workings of the industry to understand its institutions and practices and its existence as an alternative screen industry running in parallel with, but often distinct from, the better-known entertainment industry dominated by Hollywood studios. Finally, it examines the aesthetic use of animation within oil industry films to understand the ways this form of filmmaking both conceals and reveals different aspects of oil extraction and exploitation, including their implications for the present-day climate crisis. While the observations raised are intended to have broad applicability, each section uses examples drawn from the animated films made for BP by British animation studios during the twentieth century, and especially the 1951 film We’ve Come a Long Way made by the Halas and Batchelor animation studio.

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