Introduction: Media images and discourses from childhood can help shape beliefs about, and interactions with, non-human animals for a lifetime. This has been widely explored and critiqued across disciplines, especially in relation to animated films that often depict an idealised and unrealistic image of non-human animals based on anthropomorphised characteristics and human social systems.
In 2016, the Illumination animated film The Secret Life of Pets became a box office success, grossing over $100 million on its opening weekend in North America. This paper critically examines a darker side of this film’s subtext, namely, the troubling analogy of non-human animals as “property” and “toys”.
Methodology and Main Findings: Drawing on close textual analysis of the film’s mise-en-scene, paratexts and broader marketing strategies, it is argued that the film reinforces persisting trends in representations of non-human animals as property, and condones regular confinement and isolation of animals by re-inscribing acts of confinement in small apartments with notions of enjoyment and free human-like play for the animals. This reductionist and anthropocentric representation of non-human animal adaptation to human environments serves to alleviate human guilt and raises expectations that animals will naturally adjust. The beneficence of human ownership is further reinforced through the character of the “psycho bunny” Snowball who, without this ownership, is driven insane.
When aligned with the popular Pixar animated movie Toy Story, which similarly positions toys as capable of entertaining themselves when their humans are absent and being discarded when no longer of use, a dangerous learning experience is reinforced in young minds. This contributes to the ongoing normalisation of cultural attitudes about animal ownership, and undermines real-world advertising campaigns such as the Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals slogan “Pets Are Not Toys” from the early 2000s.
Conclusions and Implications:Studies have shown children are drawn to anthropomorphised characters in media, and the emotional response can be enduring. This places responsibility on producers of children’s media and adult gatekeepers to critically evaluate risks involved in even inadvertently perpetuating stereotyped, reductionist and anthropocentric human-animal interactions, and necessitates further attention to broadening and creating more nuanced discourses around human-animal relations.