Dinosaurs are the Characters of Cinema as a Reflection of the Transformation of Relations Between Science and Society

Abstract

The author explores the social and cultural implications of dinosaurs as popular cinematic characters. The article shows how dinosaurs gradually become heroes of mass culture. They left paleontological research to enter the wide symbolic space, to visualize and develop themselves in the space of animation. The author provides a brief review of animated series and films with dinosaurs from the first short film in 1914 to the present day, considering the changing roles assigned to these ancient animals. The change in the semantic load of movie hero dinosaurs was analyzed in the context of ongoing events, value transformations and relations between science and society. To understand this connection, the author refers to the ideas of Svetlana Boym and Mario Ricca. Following Boym's ideas, the author considers dinosaurs as "ideal animals for nostalgia" and finds that due to their unique characteristics, the prehistoric era and its inhabitants, dinosaurs form a whole and peaceful human prehistory, filled with the values of friendship, cooperation and love, fueled by appropriate cinematic stories. Thus biology, with its key idea of evolution and the struggle of species for survival, turns into a story with its victories, struggles and dramatic chance in the context of dinosaur filmography. Based on Ricca's ideas, the author considers dinosaurs in the context of the cultural history of animals, which a person turns into metaphorical icons of moral feelings and behavioral habits; the author draws a parallel between medieval bestiaries and modern presentations of ancient lizards. In addition, dinosaur characters are structured as semantic figures, paradoxically uniting the past, present and future of humankind, the prehistoric era and technological progress. In conclusion, the author uses optics of global evolutionism and posthumanism.