BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:Faculty Distinguished Lecture - Dr. Crystal Riley Koenig  X-WR-TIMEZONE:Mountain Time (US & Canada) BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260807T120927Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_48586425789842 DTSTART:20250213T183000Z DTEND:20250213T193000Z DESCRIPTION:"From Bedtime for Bonzo to Chimp Crazy: Primates in Entertainme nt Media"\nPrimates have been appearing in entertainment media such as doc umentaries and fiction films for more than 100 years. Over this long and s toried history\, relatively little systematic research has examined how pr imates are portrayed in film. Dr. Koenig’s research over the past nine y ears has attempted to fill this gap. In her Grace A. Tanner Faculty Distin guished Lecture\, Dr. Koenig will discuss the results of that research\, s ummarizing how the portrayal of primates that audiences receive through me dia is vastly different from reality. Some key findings include that prima tes in media represent a narrow slice of overall primate biodiversity\, fa voring large\, charismatic species like chimpanzees and gorillas over smal ler species like squirrel monkeys and marmosets. In addition\, primates in media are often engaged in fast-paced\, interesting lives that heavily fa vor behavioral complexity while primates in the wild move at a slower pace . Primates in media are often depicted in a utopian environment\, free fro m pollution\, human overlap\, poaching\, and other challenges that plague wild primates. Likewise\, primate pets in fiction film are often depicted as fun comic relief when real primate pets frequently struggle with depres sion-like symptoms. Dr. Koenig will address the real-world significance of this research by discussing how the skewed representation of primates in media may impact people’s conservation attitudes and behaviors\, leading to meaningful challenges for the world’s many endangered primate specie s.\n\nDr. Crystal Riley Koenig is an assistant professor of anthropology a t Southern Utah University. She earned her PhD and MA in Biological Anthro pology from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA in Social Psychol ogy from New Mexico State University. Her research has focused on the port rayal of primates in media and the overlap of humans and macaques in Singa pore. Dr. Koenig’s research has been published in American Anthropologis t\, Biological Conservation\, Primates\, and numerous other journals. For her contributions to her students and her field\, she has been honored wit h several awards\, including the SUU Distinguished Educator Award\, the Co llege of Humanities and Social Sciences Innovative Pedagogy Award\, and th e College of Humanities and Social Sciences Early Career Award.\n\nSynopsi s:\n\nThe 2025 Grace A. Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecture on February 1 3 featured SUU’s own\, Associate Professor of Anthropology Dr. Crystal K oenig. Her presentation was titled\, “From Bedtime for Bonzo to Chimp Cr azy: Primates in Entertainment Media”.\n\nDr. Koenig began her presentat ion outlining various examples of primates in entertainment media\, from B edtime for Bonzo to Night at the Museum 2. She explained that the research she was presenting on actually came when she was working with long-tailed macaques when she was a Project Officer for Nanyang Technological Univers ity in Singapore. She counted and observed the monkeys\, and shared storie s of the macaques entering apartment buildings\, stealing food\, which ser ved not only as a danger to humans\, but to the monkeys as well. While doi ng this research\, she watched a show called Monkey Thieves\, in which a c lose relative of the long-tailed macaques was shown raiding children’s b irthday parties\, stealing lunches\, and overall wreaking havoc. The monke ys that Dr. Koenig worked with did have moments—like stealing a woman’ s smoothie while she was sunbathing—but otherwise they lived unremarkabl e lives. \n\nDr. Koenig’s research stemmed from this idea\; that primate media\, while produced in primate habitat countries\, are produced for We stern audiences. She studied the history of primate documentaries\, in hop es of finding trends within them that would help her research. She found t hat in early media representations of primates\, they were portrayed as bl oodthirsty\; something to be subdued. On the other hand\, these early film makers would also have primates that they had poached from the wild to kee p as pets. “It really set up this early dichotomy where primates in the wild are scary\, but if you can get a little one and keep it in your house \, that’s a really good idea. And this is something we see carried over the entirety of primate documentary history.”\n\nThe future of primatolo gy\, however\, was shaped by figures like Jane Goodall\, Dian Fossey\, and Biruté Galdikas. “Despite their mixed legacies\, it’s no question th at they profoundly shaped the future of what we understand about primates and also how we represent them.” Dr. Koenig said. These informative\, st raightforward\, nature documentaries piqued interest\, but primate media s tayed changing. In the 1980s they focused on an individual in the wild\, i n the 1990s they included celebrity presenters\, and more recently primate media has seen a combination of these factors. \n\nIn comparing data\, Dr . Koenig found that of the 4 most represented species in entertainment med ia\, only 1 of them was portrayed fairly accurately\, though some disparit ies remained. Primate media didn’t accurately represent the amount of ti me the primates spent resting and feeding\, but instead focused on the ‘ other’ behaviors\, as well as travel which Dr. Koenig noted perhaps to h elp further the story. In her research\, Dr. Koenig found that there was a large emphasis on large-bodied species with a conservation status of Enda ngered or Least Concern\, systematic differences in the behavior of primat es in entertainment media compared to in the wild\, numerous inaccuracies\ , and a frequent portrayal of a pristine world\, with no human impact. In fiction films\, there is a trend of “species inappropriate things\, they ’re there either to frighten you or to be comedic relief”.\n\nIn concl uding\, Dr. Koenig outlined the broader implications of primate representa tion in media\, and what it means for primate populations. She found that audience’s perceptions of primates are impacted by specific portrayals\, for example\, a primate wearing clothes on TV must be common in the wild\ , the portrayal of primate pets drives higher demand for primate pets\, th ere is a lack of straightforward\, honest representation of primates\, whi ch suggests that audiences are only receiving a skewed\, optimistic portra yal of primates. “This is important because the conservation plight of p rimates is more serious all the time\, it’s never been more serious sinc e primates have existed. And primates really can’t afford this kind of f alse sense of complacency where we think that they’re okay because that ’s what we’re seeing on our television.” GEO:37.676662;-113.068718 LOCATION:R. Haze Hunter Alumni Center (CC)\, Great Hall SUMMARY:Faculty Distinguished Lecture - Dr. Crystal Riley Koenig  URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.suu.edu/event/apex-2025-faculty-distinguished- koenig CATEGORIES:Lectures CATEGORIES:sutvlive END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR