Irony and Catastrophe :
 The Environmental Crisis in Jan Svěrák’s Oil Gobblers

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F25%3A00141732" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/25:00141732 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/33e2.pdf" target="_blank" >https://ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/33e2.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/ekphrasis.33.2" target="_blank" >10.24193/ekphrasis.33.2</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Irony and Catastrophe :
 The Environmental Crisis in Jan Svěrák’s Oil Gobblers

Original language description

This case study examines Jan Svěrák’s student film Ropáci (Oil Gobblers, 1988), highlight- ing the environmental destruction in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. Though initially low profile, Svěrák’s mockumentary eventually became a significant symbol of the Czech environmental movement, maintaining its influence even after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the fall of Communism. This study situates Oil Gobblers within its environmental and cultural context, analysing how it reflected, critiqued, and shaped the ecological consciousness. The paper aims to explore the film’s environmental themes, challenge anthropocentric assumptions, and link cultural production to broader ecological and cultural discourses. The study addresses two primary areas: first, broader environmental-cultural history, which, following Donald Worster, can be understood as the study of interactions between human societies and the nonhuman world (Worster 4). It will briefly overview the ecological devastation in northeastern Bohemia, the setting for Oil Gobblers. This analysis examines the creation and enduring significance of the mockumentary through the framework of intermedial ecocriticism, as developed by Jørgen Bruhn and Niklas Salmose (Inspired by but diverging in several ways from Bruhn and Salmose’s approach, Intermedial Ecocriticism is a new MA-level course, taught for the first time at Masaryk University by Petr Bubeníček and Tereza Dědinová in spring semester 2025. It explores the role of culture in the cli- mate crisis, focusing on environmental justice, the green transition, and future visions of the biosphere. Through literature, film, visual arts, and new media, students exam- ine how cultural forms shape ecological awareness. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on ecocriticism, cognitive science, environmental psychol- ogy, and discourse analysis. Special emphasis is placed on the role of individuals in promoting sustainability and critically engaging with media and misinformation). This theoretical approach explores how different media forms represent and communicate ecological issues across diverse contexts. The selected mockumentary employs satire as a central strategy to critique environmental deg- radation. By integrating various media elements—such as humorous dialogue, parodic imagery, and mock-serious narration—the film constructs a layered engagement with ecological themes. Transmediation plays a crucial role in this process: the mockumentary adapts and reinterprets real-world environmental concerns, particu- larly the total destruction of natural ecosystems, into a satirical narrative form. We analyse how this adap- tation reframes serious subject matter to provoke reflection through irony. As a cinematic text, Oil Gobblers exemplifies the intermedial relationship between film and ecological discourse. Through its distinctive au- diovisual and narrative techniques, it highlights environmental destruction while situating it within broader cultural and ecological debates, thus challenging conventional representations of environmental crises.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60204 - General literature studies

Project

—

Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

EKPHRASIS

ISSN

2559-2068

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

33

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

RO - ROMANIA

Number of pages

14

Pages from-to

13-26

UT code for WoS article

001546412800002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105013969411