Animals as Conflicts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/fv.45.2.11Keywords:
Godzilla, animal resistance, saviorism, military-animal industrial complex, nuclear weaponsAbstract
In this article, we utilize two absolute anti-nuclear classics of all time, the novellas Godzilla (1955) and Godzilla Raids Again (1955) by Shigeru Kayama to focus on the possibilities of thinking not only in the usual way about animals in conflicts but about animals as conflicts. Godzilla is not merely a nuclear allegory, and as such a personification, an embodiment of a conflict, but also an “allegory” of animal resistance, an embodiment of another, more underlying conflict, with all its necessarily (non-)allegorical implications. Our aim is to explore this view of Godzilla in the context of recent discussions in animal philosophy, namely the concept of animal resistance. This article will investigate the relationship between animal victimhood and resistance, thereby identifying a novel phenomenon: animals as saviors.1
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