Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
“Fast Food Nation” makes headlines
In almost every movie ever made, at some point, a character will consume animal products: a cheeseburger, a steak, a tuna sandwich, an omelet, a slice of pizza, a milk shake...whatever. Often, the script will even have characters specifically voice their love for such fare. In the reviews of these films, of course, you will see no mention of this. No film reviewer would ever condemn a movie simply because the protagonist ate and enjoyed, say, a grilled cheese sandwich. However, if you were to release a movie that directly addressed the standard American diet and animal consumption, every wiseass writer would be poised and ready to get glib and trivialize the message. It’s all part of the subtle, daily conditioning we endure. If you don’t believe me, check out some of the headlines for Fast Food Nation reviews.
+++
Speaking of junk food: Artist Sue Coe. wrote this after her visit to a hatchery with Lorri Bauston from Farm Sanctuary:
Around the back is a large dumpster. Lorri and I climb up to look inside. She is looking for live baby chicks. The male baby chicks are discarded as soon as they are hatched. They have no use, no value, since they cannot lay eggs. And it would cost too much to euthanize them. So they are tossed into the dumpster alive. But it is too late for us to rescue any chicks—the sun is just too hot. On the top layer of corpses, flies are eating the chicks’ eyes. Lorri keeps digging under the corpses. There are layers upon layers, some chicks still half in the shells, having broken through with their beaks. I examine a chick, so perfect with its soft yellow down and tiny wings. The chicks are thrown in with other garbage: empty Coke cans, cigarette packs, computer printouts, samples of our throwaway society. Gene Bauston, cofounder of Farm Sanctuary, told me that sometimes the baby chicks are ground up alive and thrown on the fields as fertilizer. Walking along a plowed field, you can sometimes find a chick, still alive, with no legs or wings.
If you think you might wanna speak out against such practices, you better do it real soon...before it’s against the law.
And speaking of animal rights: The latest, must-read issue of the Abolitionist (including interviews with both Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen) is available online here.
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
