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Becoming-Dinosaur: Life’s Resistance Against Binary Biopower in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993)

Alex Ventimilla

This article discusses how the cinematic classic Jurassic Park (1993, dir. Spielberg) is often represented in a negative light in the critical literature that surrounds it. This paper will argue that these paranoid readings are not necessarily productive, and a different, more reparative reading of the film is warranted. Through combining an extensive list of theoretical approaches by many postmodern philosophers such as Deleuze and Guattari, the Dinosaur comes into being as the most important and impactful character of the film. With a focus on the affective and the animal turn, this study is a pointed reparative analysis of how the Dinosaur becomes a force of resistance against multiple facets of binary biopower; ultimately becoming the hero of the entire film.

Keywords: becoming-animal, reparative reading, affect, resistance, biopower

Alex Ventimilla is an English and Film Studies MA student at the University of Alberta currently working on my research-creation capstone project, Mestizo Coyote Tales, a collection of short stories. Next year, Alex will begin working on a Ph.D., focusing on the intersection between paleontology and popular culture.