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The panda is the most beloved animal on the planet — a face engineered by evolution to look like a cartoon and adopted by the world as a symbol of cuteness, fragility, and goodwill. From Su Lin's 1930s celebrity to panda-cams, viral cubs, and Kung Fu Panda, it is pop culture's favourite bear.
Part of The Giant Panda
4 moments in this segment.
- — The birth of the panda celebrity. With Su Lin's arrival the panda becomes the first true animal celebrity of the media age — splashed across newsreels and magazines, mobbed by crowds, merchandised into toys. The peculiar charm of a roly-poly black-and-white bear that sits up and eats like a person makes it irresistible.
- — A face built to be adored. The panda triggers what ethologists call the "baby schema" — big head, round face, large eye-patches that read as huge eyes, a clumsy gait. Konrad Lorenz argued such features hijack the human instinct to nurture. Evolution made a bear that the whole species is helpless to resist.
- — Tai Shan and the panda-cam era. When Tai Shan is born at the National Zoo in July 2005, the zoo's "panda-cam" turns him into an internet phenomenon, watched by millions online. The live-streamed cub is a new kind of celebrity — proof that the panda has conquered the web as thoroughly as it once conquered the newsreel.
- — Kung Fu Panda. DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda makes the bumbling, noodle-loving panda Po a global box-office star and spawns a franchise. The film cements the panda's place as pop culture's favourite bear — clumsy, lovable, and unmistakably itself.
