The Corruption of Man
Man first appeared on Earth 500,000 years ago. As time progressed, humans have continually exploited the environment and animals for personal gain. As technological advancements and urbanization continue, it is important to examine the causes and consequences of our strained relationship with nature. The short film MAN by Steve Cutts sheds light on the destructiveness of humans. By portraying man’s relentless and reckless consumerism, the film is able to convey the message that excessive greed and disregard for nature’s well-being will have long-lasting effects. Through this, the film spreads awareness and encourages the audience to claim responsibility in order to better our relationship with the Earth. Although the animated short film MAN does not include dialogue to make its argument, the animation uses various elements, such as background music, colors, and visuals that appeal to the audience’s ethics and sadness to show the detrimental effects of man’s relationship with the natural world.
Cutts included an orchestral piece for the background music of the animation. The song used was “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. This composition has a suspenseful and foreboding tone, which sets the dark mood for the film. Throughout the video, the man graphically harms animals and the environment. While the visuals are enough to make the audience feel uneasy, the tone of the song triggers anxiety and uncertainty about the extent of the man’s corruption.
Fred Everett Maus, a musicologist, builds off the claim that music has the capacity to influence a person’s mood. He states that “The emotions- suspense, tension, relief-do not duplicate emotions that are depicted or expressed in the work, but rather, they result from the reader’s or listener’s cognition of the work through time” (Maus). Through this statement, Maus highlights the importance of audience engagement by claiming that viewers play an active role in the creation of emotional responses to a piece of music. Emotions, such as suspense, are not directly presented in the work; they are evoked through the viewer’s perception of the composition. In MAN, the grim music creates a sense of anticipation in the audience that encourages the viewers to perceive the man’s actions as shameful.
Additionally, Cutts utilizes color to parallel good vs. bad. At the beginning of the film, the background of the animation is a bright yellow color, which is often associated with positive feelings and happiness. However, as the video progresses, the background gradually gets darker. After each sin the man commits, the background is tainted a darker color, representing immorality and evilness. The end of the film is a flash-forward to the future, which the audience can infer because of the UFO and aliens. At this point, the background is completely black, which represents that the damage is done and nature has been corrupted.
In terms of the foreground, the man, animals, and nature are black and white throughout the entire animation. This represents corruption for the man and death for nature and the animals. The man is the one killing the animals and destroying the environment, which is why he is pictured in black. The color black is often affiliated with darkness and extortion, which is what this man represents. In parallel to this, the environment and the animals are being abused by the man, in which the color black represents sadness and grief. Since the man will terminate anything in this path, the color black foreshadows the future of the world.
Furthermore, Cutts includes several visuals that appeal to the audience’s ethics with reference to harming nature. Several of these visuals involve the man mistreating animals for his personal gain. Early in the animation, the man fattens up a chicken with poison, uses it as a basketball, and throws it in oil to fry alive (Cutts 00:00:27–47). This shows cruelty in the food industry through humans being careless towards animals and not treating them as if they are living organisms. Later in the video, the man locks a baby bear in a cage and forces it to dance, which represents cruelty in circuses and the entertainment industry (Cutts 00:01:28–30). Wildlife was not created for humans to exploit for their amusement, so the man is committing an unethical act by treating them as such. Similarly, the film shows animal testing on bunnies and strange mutations occurring to them as a result, which reflects cruelty in the cosmetics industry (Cutts 00:02:12–19). Animal testing is immoral and unfair to animals- if we would not do it to humans, why do we do it to them? These scenarios appeal to ethics because they encourage viewers to realize that humans harm animals everyday for various industries, but this is not fair or morally right.
“If we would not do it to humans, why do we do it to them?”
Cutts likely included these scenes in order to persuade people to change their actions or push for change in the commercial world. Colin Davis, the author of “Ethics, Stories, and Reading” reviews literature from a philosophical viewpoint. He states that “The ambiguity that suffuses a work… does not make of it a mere cipher that we can turn into whatever we want. It makes its own kind of demand on us — a demand for interpretation drawn from the heart of perplexity” (Davis). This means that ambiguity in literature is not something that readers can interpret in any way they choose without regard for the author’s intent. The purpose of including animal cruelty in the short film was to encourage the audience to sympathize with what is happening to animals, while simultaneously influencing viewers to reconsider their morals if they are okay with this abuse. This interpretation would fit with the author’s purpose of creating this film since the film prompts people to stop acting destructively towards nature.
Finally, Cutts uses visuals that evoke sadness in the viewers. Throughout the film, Cutts includes graphic animations of harming animals. At the beginning of the film, the man kills snakes for snakeskin boots (Cutts 00:00:22–25), and later kills seals to make a fur coat (Cutts 00:00:57–59). This appeals to the audience’s emotions because the creator is using a vivid picture of violence to evoke sadness and pity for the snakes and seals. People may not understand how common animal cruelty is in the fashion industry, so these scenes serve as a wake-up call to viewers to stop buying clothes made from animals. Additionally, later in the video, the man shoots a bear and uses its head as a wall mount decoration (Cutts 00:01:24–28). Although it is not common today to use actual animal limbs for decorations, in the past, people have used real bears or other animals to create wall mounts. This evokes sadness from the viewers because the man had no real purpose of killing the bear, he simply did so for a trivial matter. Since this decoration was cruel and unnecessary, it makes the audience want to advocate to stop making these types of decorations.
“a demand for interpretation drawn from the heart of perplexity”
Similarly, Cutts uses visuals regarding the environment to appeal to the viewer’s pity. In the film, the man dumps oil into the ocean and the animation shows waste building up on the water (Cutts 00:01:12–17). Oil spills and plastic waste harm sea life, but are also harmful for the climate and pollution. The film also shows trees being turned into paper (Cutts 00:01:32–39), pollution from factories, and a huge landfill (00:02:20–43). These clips all show humans harming the environment, which evokes feelings of sadness from the audience. Seeing humans destroy the Earth for their own gain motivates people to reconsider their behavior and take action against the destruction. In addition, these scenarios also show how humans are hurting themselves. Specifically, pollution has detrimental effects on human health regarding respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer. If a person has undergone these illnesses or has a loved one who has, they are more inclined to be affected by these animations.
Through the short film MAN, Cutts shows that there does not need to be dialogue in order to spread a powerful message. Instead, he uses music, colors, and visuals to depict human greed. Through evoking feelings of sadness from the viewers and appealing to their ethics, the film encourages the audience to reevaluate their personal actions and call for change in societal norms in order to better our relationship with nature.
Works Cited
Cutts, Steve, director. MAN. YouTube, 21 Dec. 2012,https://youtu.be/WfGMYdalClU?si=Vlfmzx_pQZYJ6DXP. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
Davis, Colin. “Ethics, Stories and Reading.” SubStance, vol. 42, no. 2, 2013, pp. 128–40.JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24540810. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023.
Maus, Fred Everett. “Narrative, Drama, and Emotion in Instrumental Music.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 55, no. 3, 1997, pp. 293–303. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/431799. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023.