Paper short abstract:

This paper asks how the animated TV show 'Animals' offers new ways of thinking about the intermeshed life-worlds of humans and non-humans in New York City, while simultaneously illuminating queer, counter-hegemonic ways of being within the violent, urbanized infrastructures of the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract:

In the HBO series Animals, a ruthless mega-corporation genetically engineers a virus and releases it into the heart of New York City. In the days before the pandemic, a caged monkey sleeps in the corporation’s animal testing facility in Manhattan. On the surface of the animal’s skin, two queer fleas meander through forests of hair, play basketball, and ponder the meaning of life. Erik, the shorter flea, wonders if the monkey knows they exist. “Probably not,” he concludes. “But then, does God even know we exist? And if he did know we existed, why would he even care about us?” In the end, the fleas find solace in the ephemeral nature of existence. “I am big,” Erik shouts. “I mean, I’m the second-tallest flea on this monkey’s ass. That’s got to stand for something, right?”

In this paper, I argue that the show Animals offers new ways of thinking about the intermeshed, ephemeral life-worlds of humans and non-humans in urban space. Following Jack Halberstam’s embrace of low theory, I examine how Animals combines low-brow humor and low-budget animation to illuminate queer, counterhegemonic ways of being within the violent, urbanized infrastructures of the Anthropocene. I analyze how the show’s unconventional use of language, narrative form, and animation foregrounds the agency and personhood of non-humans without reifying the notion of a bounded, fully autonomous self. Ultimately, I argue that Animals forces viewers to move away from the naturalized categories of pest/pet, wild/domestic and human/animal towards a “humbling recognition that animal lives, even as they are coconstituted alongside human lives, exceed their imbrication in the latter” (Govindrajan 2018). By giving an anthropomorphized glimpse into the desires, fears, and conflicts of cats, rats, roaches, microbes and more, the series simultaneously highlights the interconnected nature of human and animal worlds while articulating an urban otherwild that defies human mastery.