While The Wolfman (2010) is hardly what I’d call an animal-friendly film – or even a good film – I found this exchange between two “gypsy” women (Irish Travellers?), tending to an injured man in the wake of a werewolf attack, rather insightful (if unintentionally so):

Daughter: Once he is bitten by the beast, there is no cure. You should let him die.

Maleva: That would make me a sinner.

Daughter: There is no sin in killing a beast.

Maleva: Is there not?

What of killing a man? Where does one begin and the other end?

Elsewhere in the movie, villagers are shown tying up a moose and using him as “bait” with which to catch the werewolf who had been terrorizing their village (happily, the moose escapes unscathed). Additionally, the traveling gypsy clan owns a “dancing” bear who is initially blamed for the “animal attacks.” While the bear appears to be computer generated, his captivity still makes for depressing viewing. Last but not least, the bulk of the story’s plot involves the hunting of a werewolf, which could quite possibly be construed as a matter of self-defense, as said wolfman primarily preys on his human kin.

Possibly there’s a more nuanced discussion to be had on the animal ethics of The Wolfman; if so, I’m not feeling it. In one word: yawn.

Spoiler warning!

Earlier this year, I wrote a brief piece about George A. Romero’s 2007 zombie horror flick Diary of the Dead. While the film did not explicitly address our treatment of nonhuman animals, the ending depicted two hunters tormenting a female zombie for “sport,” her “death” (if, indeed, one can kill the undead) becoming for them a form of entertainment, as opposed to a matter of survival. The narrator’s final words posed a question that I oftentimes ask myself, particularly during monster movies in which the future of humanity’s existence is called into question:

Are we worth saving?

You tell me.

Survival of the Dead is Romero’s 2009 follow-up to Diary of the Dead. While similar in style and tone, I found its ending and implications to be far more disturbing than those of its predecessor.

Without going too much into plot detail – it’s mostly incidental – Survival of the Dead follows a band of ex-military mercenaries (seen briefly in Diary of the Dead) as they escape a U.S. mainland riddled with zombies for a seeming island oasis. Located off the coast of Delaware, Plum Island is controlled by two feuding Irish families: the O’Flynns and the Muldoons. While the O’Flynn clan and its allies work to save the island and its remaining human residents from an infestation of the undead by finding and slaying all of those infected, the Muldoon camp believes that it’s their familial duty to keep their zombie kin alive – but chained up and under control – until a cure can be found. Naturally, these two philosophies cause a further rift between the competing families; ultimately, the Muldoons prevail, and Patrick O’Flynn – family patriarch and head of the zombie-hunting posse – is banished from the island.

After some time, O’Flynn returns in the company of the mercenaries, only to find the zombies “chained up [...] in imitation of their previous lives – a mailman puts mail in a mailbox, a logger wields an axe on some wood, and so on,” as Wiki so aptly describes it. The remaining inhabitants have started to lose hope that a cure is forthcoming; instead, they’ve shifted goals, aiming to train the zombies to at least “act” human – and, more importantly, to crave and consume the flesh of nonhuman animals over that of their human kin.

Ultimately, a show-down between the two clans hinges upon Seamus Muldoon’s success in this endeavor. One of Patrick Muldoon’s daughters, the zombie Jane, is placed in a small corral with a horse, in whom she shows little interest. Instead, she bites the hand of her twin sister Janet, thus infecting her as well. A gunfight breaks out between the two warring factions, and in the chaos, a group of gathered zombies is set loose on the participants, most of whom are devoured by their undead relatives.

After the battle ends and the group disperses, Jane does attack the horse, biting a chunk of flesh from his body. Alas, the only witnesses to this “victory” are Janet and her father. As Janet rushes off to inform the departing group, Patrick shoots his infected daughter in the head; the secret now belongs to the ever-proud Patrick, and Patrick alone.

The Muldoons, it turns out, were right: zombies can be retrained to eat nonhuman animals. In the context of the film, this shift in consumptive preferences is presented as a “good” thing – progress, success, a triumph. But is it?

As a vegan, my answer is obvious. But one need not be an animal advocate to see the horrific moral calculations embodied in this message. As popularly imagined – and certainly, as presented in Romero’s films – zombies are…undead. Unfeeling. Immune to pain, of either the physical or psychological sort. Lacking in emotions. Incapable of anything but the most rudimentary, instinctive thought. Unable to bond with or even recognize friends and family members. But most of all, they are dead! They had and lived their one life and, while it may have ended prematurely, it is over.

And yet, we’re supposed to see the sacrifice of countless other lives in sustenance of the undead as a “win”? As compared to zombies, nonhuman animals are sentient; they are capable of feeling pain, and suffer immensely while consumed alive, piece by agonizing piece, whether by zombies or humans. They can think, fall in love, experience joy and sadness, and feel fear and longing. They have friends and families, daughters and sons, mothers and fathers. Their will to live is no less than our own.

Going far beyond the fucked up, speciesist morals and practices of existing human societies, Survival of the Dead imagines a world in which nonhumans animals aren’t just “less than” humans – but are also “less than” dead humans. Has-been humans. Once-were humans. Are no more-humans. At best, terminally ill and in need of swift, humane euthanasia. At worst, just this side of a rock.

Nonhuman animals < zombies = a world I don't want to live in.

Is there a reason our undead families should snack on the flesh of nonhuman animals over that of humans? (After all, it is we who cannot accept their deaths.) Would we willingly offer our own bodies up to aid zombie dogs or undead polar bears in their own survival? (I think not.) And what happens, exactly, when the undead eat through all the nonhuman animal life forms on the planet? Humans are already devouring the planet’s resources at an alarming rate; earth simply would not survive an undead army of consumers for long. Ultimately, the Survival of the Dead would mean the demise of all – humans and nonhumans alike.

So.

Are we worth saving?

You tell me.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead (2007) is your standard, post-apocalyptic zombie fare. As the dead begin to reanimate, a group of film students and their professor flees down the East Coast in a rickety RV. The story is told from the vantage point of the students, in particular Jason, the aspiring documentarian of the group.

Nonhuman animals don’t make an appearance in Diary of the Dead – really, there’s not one guard dog or zombie cat to be found – and yet, the movie’s ending speaks to what I’ve been feeling with increasing urgency as of late. (Cue images of the “oil” spill in the Gulf Coast, complete with hand-wringing about oil-soaked pelicans, torched turtles belonging to endangered species – and the “livelihoods” of the “fishermen” who themselves eke out a living by slaughtering nonhuman animals by the millions. “RIP Gumbo,” indeed.)

The final scene, narrated by Jason’s girlfriend, Debra (who took up his cause after he was mauled to death by a zombie; no spoiler alert needed, as she refers to him in the past tense throughout the film’s voiceover), turns the camera’s lens inward, into the heart of humanity.

Click here to watch the movie’s ending (skip ahead to 6:50; sorry, embedding disabled!), or keep reading for a transcript.

Jason once said he thought he could help. Maybe even save some lives.

This is the last thing he downloaded before he died.

[Cue: homemade video footage, downloaded from the internet.]

A couple of hometown Joes who were now shooting targets.

[Two white, middle-aged men, dressed in flannel and hunting jackets, swigging on beers while brandishing handguns...]

That day they used people.

Dead people.

You know, just for fun.

[...laughingly shoot at reanimated humans, i.e., zombies.]

There was one target that different from the rest.

A woman, tied by her hair to the branch of a tree.

The boys had this one set up just for kicks.

They got out their favorite 12 gauge and…

[BOOM! A shotgun blast rips through the zombie woman's mouth, splitting her face in two. Her torso falls to the ground as her partially decapitated head continues to swing from the tree. Eyes, staring - accusatory in their blankness.]

Are we worth saving?

You tell me.

In a world in which it’s “Us” versus “Them” – “Us” and “The Other” – all manner of cruelties can be justified: Pigeon shoots. Canned hunts. Leghold traps. Farmed animals. Forced pregnancy and birth. Stolen milk, anemic babies, grieving mothers. Enslavement. Torture. An early and merciless death.

And that’s before the shit hits the fan.

Tell me: who will you become after the death of death?

Fowl Play Screening and UPC Presentation in New York City May 15
Join United Poultry Concerns & Mercy For Animals at the Columbus Library!

United Poultry Concerns and Mercy For Animals invite you to attend a screening of MFA’s award winning film Fowl Play and a presentation by UPC president Karen Davis in honor of International Respect for Chickens Month/May.

Hosted by the Columbus Library on Saturday, May 15 from 11:30am to 2:00pm – the day preceding the Third Annual Veggie Pride Parade in NYC – this event will be followed by leafleting for chickens!

Fowl Play Screening and Chicken Presentation will be held at:

Columbus Library
742 10th Ave (between 50th & 51st Streets)
New York, NY 10019-7019
(212) 586-5098

Saturday, May 15, 2010

11:30am-12:00pm – free vegan food samples

12:00pm – Introduction by Matt Rice, NYC Campaign Coordinator for MFA

12:05pm – Fowl Play screening (25 minutes)

12:30pm – Presentation/Lecture by UPC President Karen Davis, author of the groundbreaking book Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs

1:00pm-2:00pm – Leafleting session for chickens

This event is free and open to the public. Please join United Poultry Concerns and Mercy For Animals on the eve of the Veggie Pride Parade in honor of International Respect for Chickens Month/May.

Give a cluck – stick up for chickens – go vegan!

United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.

Don’t just switch from beef to chicken. Go Vegan.

www.UPC-online.org

Order Today: Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (2009 Revised Edition)

Caution: Spoilers ahead!

Sexism and speciesism go together like, well, movies and popcorn. Carol J. Adams wrote the book on this nasty little tag-team, and I for one am a smarter consumer of pop culture for it. I also love movies and popcorn, so imagine my surprise when, one snowy afternoon, I watched Penelope and found my vegan-feminist Spidey Sense a-tingle.

Penelope stars Christina Ricci as an otherwise gorgeous girl born with a pig’s nose as the result of an old family curse. (Women! pigs! obvious! parallel!) The curse, of course, can only be broken by the love of “one of her own kind”—unanimously interpreted to mean that of another aristocrat. Already, we have all the elements of a fairy tale—the perfect lens for examining cultural notions of beauty and self-love.

Penelope’s parents are a study in contrasts: her father, Franklin (Richard E. Grant), guiltily accepts responsibility for Penelope’s “disfigurement,” as his side of the family bears the curse; her mother, Jessica (Catherine O’Hara), is so terrified of what people will say that she fakes baby Penelope’s death to deter snooping reporters. She is so obsessed by her daughter’s nose that she bans anything pig-related, scolding Jake the butler when he plays “This Little Piggy” with the baby’s toes and forbidding her husband to eat bacon. Any notion of her daughter as animal is anathema to her—we’re meant to understand that she means well, but her fixation reveals far more about her than it does about Penelope.

Penelope grows up in secret, nurturing a love of horticulture and staging puppet shows by herself, never encountering the outside world. Jessica, meanwhile, has but one goal: groom Penelope for marriage. She hires a matchmaker on Penelope’s 18th birthday and is hell-bent on finding a man—any man, as long as he’s a blue-blood—to break the curse. (The focus on breeding calls to mind the ways in which, for women and animals alike, destiny is still often pre-determined.) After several failed attempts at allowing potential suitors to meet Penelope face-to-face (to a one, they scream at her ugliness and leap out the window), an elaborate courtship ritual is contrived. The young men wait in the library, where Penelope watches and talks to them through a one-way mirror. Her family, disturbingly, watches on closed-circuit TV, munching on popcorn, eager for her to find The One.

When the film begins, Penelope is 25, which means she’s spent seven years being rejected by every blue-blood in town. After a particularly disastrous meeting with histrionic snob Edward Humphrey Vandermann III (Simon Woods), Jessica senses that their options are running out, and suggests they double Penelope’s dowry. In a rare show of hurt and frustration, Penelope snaps, “If they can’t stand the sight of me now, what makes you think they’ll be able to for double?” When she later tries to soothe herself with junk food, Jessica slaps a Ho-Ho out of her hands and scolds, “Now you’re just going to make a pig of yourself?” “No, that’s already been done for me,” Penelope replies bitterly.

Vandermann, his ego wounded by a newspaper article branding him unstable after his rantings about a monstrous pig-faced girl, joins forces with tabloid reporter Lemon (the super Peter Dinklage), who’s been chasing Penelope’s photo since her birth. They hire anti-Prince Charming Max Campion (James McAvoy), who’s gambled away the family fortune, to pose as one of Penelope’s suitors. You know what happens next: over chess games and discussions of books, Max and Penelope develop a connection. He finds his errand distasteful—he’s uncomfortable with the idea of exploiting Penelope to get her photo, but he could really use Lemon’s money, too. In this pairing, it’s not the woman who feels pressured to marry for money. Max gets thisclose, too: unfortunately, when they’re finally face to face, it all gets FUBARed and he runs out of the library, leaving a distraught Penelope believing that yet another man is repulsed by her. “I’m a monster,” she cries, and her internalization of all the hatred directed at her is complete.

By this point, it’s clear that Penelope needs to take matters into her own hands if she’s ever going to break free of her gilded cage. So, that’s what she does. She steals her mother’s credit card, wraps a scarf around the lower half of her face, and braves the city alone. Frightened though she is by such foreign sights as joggers (she thinks they’re chasing her), she’s pleasantly surprised that no one treats her as an oddity. Her scarf? It’s a harmless eccentricity, easily overlooked by a friendly bartender and a sassy courier named Annie (Reese Witherspoon).

Jessica and Franklin, meanwhile, are losing their minds, but can’t figure out how to find their daughter without drawing attention to her. “Think ‘pig,’” Franklin says in exasperation to a private investigator confused by the fact that Penelope’s parents have no photos of her. “So, she’s a fat girl,” he clarifies, making a note. Here again we see the overt, unfavorable association of women and animals. To their further chagrin, the drawing that runs of Penelope, next to the headline, “Have You Seen This Pig?” is the one that Edward earlier described to a sketch artist: hideous, be-fanged, stringy-haired, snarling. Penelope has been reduced to a porcine vampire-zombie. Fed up with the speculation and the drama, she makes a deal with Lemon to sell him her photo herself. A brief session in a photo booth gives her back her power.

The headlines that accompany her photo most clearly highlight the intersection of speciesism and misogyny. “Behold the Pig-Faced Girl,” trumpets one. “‘It’ Exists,” declares another. Indeed, she does, but Penelope’s pig nose renders her less than human. She’s a discovery, a new species of creature to be gawked at. In her naïveté, she marvels at the hordes of paparazzi clamoring to photograph her: “They’re not running,” she says in wonderment. She knows that she is a freak to them, but she’s a freak on her own terms.

Of course, Penelope becomes everyone’s darling. Amusingly, her newfound public adopts the same welfarist attitudes her mother did, and Pig Latin is banned from schools. Even Edward Vandermann, who insisted that she belonged in a cage, is cajoled by his embarrassed father into asking for Penelope’s hand in marriage. “Things are different now,” she protests when her mother urges her to accept with a reminder that Edward could break the curse. “You’re just a talking pig to those people,” Jessica says harshly, and we see that Penelope’s public coming-out has done little to change her opinion of her own daughter.

Penelope and Edward’s wedding day arrives, and amongst the sparkling champagne and artful bouquets, there is much anxious breath-holding. What will Penelope wear? Can Edward go through with it? Will he break the curse?

Duh, of course not. Before she can repeat her vows to Edward (who mumbles his without looking at her), Penelope realizes what a farce the whole “curse” deal is and runs off to her room, her only sanctuary. Jessica pleads with her to reconsider, to think of the family, but Penelope, who has finally taken steps to create the life she’s always wanted, cries, “I don’t want a whole new me. I like myself the way I am!” Those words, Penelope’s words of self-acceptance, break the curse. Her pig nose disappears, replaced by one that looks an awful lot like it, only human. “I had had the power all along,” she muses in a voiceover.

Jessica is appropriately contrite, even though Penelope still comforts her, as she’s done for years. She’s not changed, though: In the same breath, she goes from admiring Penelope’s new nose to suggesting a nose job so she can look her best. She’s chronically unhappy, and Penelope feels sad for her, but she’s through with absorbing her mother’s unhappiness. In a further magical twist, Jake the butler is revealed to be the witch who cast the curse so long ago. Before he disappears, he kindly renders Jessica mute, so her manic shrieks are reduced to soundless flailing.

“Wait a minute,” you’re thinking. “This is a fairy tale. Penelope’s broken the curse, but she has to get her man, too.” And right you are. Max, the broke-ass high-born gambler, is actually Johnny, who is equally broke-ass but nowhere near as aristocratic. However will Penelope find him again? A nifty subterfuge is introduced on Halloween, when little girls everywhere don scarves and pig masks to “be” Penelope. As she knocks on Johnny’s door, Penelope puts on a pig mask of her own. He doesn’t recognize her at first, and the mask allows them to slowly reveal their true feelings, much as the one-way mirror did during their first meetings. When they finally kiss, it’s with her mask on. Johnny realizes that she never needed him to break the curse in the first place. And they lived happily ever after.

On the surface, Penelope is a sweetly modern fairy tale about loving yourself and defying shallow beauty conventions. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find thoughtful, if accidental, commentary on the joint subjugation of women and animals. While I was glad to see that everything didn’t automatically fall into place for Penelope once she broke the curse, I found myself wishing that she had kept her original nose, a la Cyrano or Roxanne. Or Shrek, even, another movie with a subversive-yet-kid-friendly message about beauty. Speaking of kids, the wisest voice in Penelope comes in the form of one of her students. “It’s not the power of the curse. It’s the power you give the curse,” he supplies helpfully. Wise words for us feminists as we keep fighting our own curses, which are too often also those of our non-human sisters.

Caution: Spoilers Galore!

As far as horror movies go, The Crazies is fairly standard stuff. A plane crash-lands in a remote marsh just a tick upstream of the rural farming town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. On board is a biological weapon, engineered by the U.S. government in order to “destabilize populations”; allegedly, it was en route to “an incinerator in Dallas,” having proven too dangerous for wide scale use. The plane’s payload slowly leaks into its watery tomb, where the contaminant is carried downstream, straight into Ogden Marsh’s water supply – and onto its citizens’ crops and into their bellies. In short order, the virus infects the town’s residents, transforming them from loving husbands and mild-mannered educators into violent, homicidal “crazies.” *

The federal government quickly moves in, quarantining the town and separating the townspeople into two groups – “infected” and “not” – ripping families apart in the process. Those who are thought to be sick are taken to the local high school (now set up as a makeshift hospital), strapped to hospital gurneys, and “treated.” (“Observed” is more like it. The viewer doesn’t get the feeling that there’s anything the doctors can do to help their patients.) The healthy residents are transported to a large gas station/truck stop/convenience store situated on the edge of town, ostensibly for eventual evacuation to nearby Sioux City. Of course, because this is a horror film and all, things do not go as planned; a riot breaks out at the high school, leading to the government’s evacuation (and eventual nuclear incineration, complete with cover-up) of Ogden Marsh. The events unfold within a 96-hour period (two days pre- and two days post-outbreak), during which the audience follows four heroes – the local sheriff and deputy; the sheriff’s wife, who’s also the town’s only doctor; and her teenage assistant – as they try to understand what’s happening to their fellow citizens and, later, escape to safety.

What’s particularly interesting about The Crazies from a vegan perspective is the way in which the town’s residents are portrayed, pre- and post-infection. Precipitating the sheriff’s hunt for and discovery of the downed plane is the discovery of its pilot – or rather, its pilot’s body – in the marsh by a group of (duck?) hunters, whom the sheriff scolds for illegal, off-season hunting.

Later on, during the first night of the viral outbreak, the sheriff and his companions stumble upon the same group of hunters while looking for a working vehicle along the town’s main street (which might very well be called Main Street). The hunters are infected, and have “graduated” from the recreational killing of nonhuman animals to hunting humans for fun. Hiding across the way, our heroes watch as the hunters gun down several fleeing people – and then load the dead bodies into the back of their pickup truck, the same way hunters do with deer corpses. As one of the men opens the truck’s tailgate, the viewer is treated to the image of a half dozen human bodies, freshly dead and still dripping blood, stacked one atop another, pyramid style. The grotesque, veiny zombie faces and city setting aside, the group – laughing, whooping, hollering – looks as though they could be chasing down deers or turkeys on a dusky Sunday morning.

The next night, the sheriff and his wife – now the only two survivors – run into the hunters again, this time at the now-abandoned convenience store. The hunters have taken up residence at the establishment; finding that the store’s roomy cooler makes for the perfect place to stash dead bodies, they have converted it into a meat locker – for human meat, that is. At one point, the protagonists are forced to hide among the corpses, “playing dead” in order to survive. A human body, swinging upside-down from a meat hook, provides lifesaving camouflage.

While it’s true that the bio-engineered virus turns all those infected into homicidal killers, the group of hunters are presented as an especially dangerous and menacing group. They are one of the first and last challenges the heroes must overcome in order to escape. Unlike many other sick townspeople, the hunters do not succumb during the first day of infection, either to the military or to other “crazies”; they not only survive, but thrive, banding together and hunting down “the others” in a somewhat organized and efficient fashion (even having the sense, in their diseased state, to keep their “meat” in cold storage). As far as “the crazies” go, the hunters are the “craziest” of the “crazy” – already thrilled by violence and death prior to the outbreak, their blood lust only escalates with sickness.

Additionally, the film also utilizes a few familiar symbols of animal exploitation – above and beyond the aforementioned hunting imagery – in order to emphasize just how horribly the townspeople have been treated by their government. For example, on the first night of the infection, the healthy individuals are ferried to the mega-convenience store in cattle trucks (slatted wood siding and all – just wide enough to poke an arm through in panic and plea), similar to those used to transport women (read: cattle) in The Handmaid’s Tale and humans (read: guinea pigs) in Terminator Salvation. Twenty-four hours later, the doctor comes across these same trucks, left abandoned in the store’s parking lot. Peering inside, she finds the bodies of her fellow citizens, gunned down where they stood. Herded, trapped, dispatched. “Like animals,” no doubt.

Of course, this isn’t to imply that the filmmakers intend this is as a commentary on our treatment of nonhuman animals. Instead, it’s much more likely that they’re simply appropriating the imagery of animal suffering and exploitation in order to further drive home the desperate plight of Ogden Marsh’s human residents. Even so, I find the linkage of oppressions both significant and heartening; as long as we condone and encourage the exploitation of some of us (no matter how “less”), we are all potential victims. Violence is a virus, and no one is immune.

* The title – a carry over from the 1973 flick The Crazies, of which this 2010 version is a remake – is both unimaginative and ableist. And I say the latter as a someone who 1) doesn’t usually take issue with “crazy” when used as slang, i.e., “my husband’s snoring drives me crazy” and 2) is herself, shall we say, “certifiable.”

For once, I’m actually happy that I don’t get HBO – otherwise, I’d feel obligated to watch and report on Temple Grandin, a new biopic starring Claire Danes that’s premiering on the cable channel this weekend. (Spared by own cheapness!) As if the title alone isn’t enough to turn all the vegans and vegetarians in the audience off (what’s that? you’ve never heard of Temple Grandin, you say?), behold American Humane’s gag-worthy marketing materials:

Movie Tells Inspirational Life Story of American Humane Advisor
‘Temple Grandin’ Airs Feb. 6 on HBO

HBO will premiere an original film based on the inspirational, true story of Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, on Feb. 6, 2010. (Check your local listing for the broadcast time in your area.)

Temple Grandin paints a picture of a young woman’s perseverance and determination while struggling with the isolating challenges of autism. Grandin became a successful doctor in animal science through her unique connection to animals and is now a world-renowned consultant in the field. She is widely recognized within the animal welfare and livestock-handling industries as a pioneer in the ethical treatment of animals.

If by “ethical” you mean “killing more efficiently.” Similarly, Grandin’s “unique connection” to “food” animals is akin to that of a serial killer to her victims. Tomato, tomahto.

Grandin is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the American Humane® Certified farm animal program. American Humane Certified, originated by the American Humane Association, is the nation’s pre-eminent and fastest-growing monitoring, auditing and labeling program that attests to the humane care and handling of animals raised for food. Find out more about the American Humane Certified program at www.thehumanetouch.org.

Or just bypass the “happy meat” propaganda and go straight to humanemyth.org.

Grandin is also the best-selling author of Thinking in Pictures, Animals in Translation and Humane Livestock Handling. She recently authored an article titled “The Importance of Farm Animal Welfare” for The National Humane Review.

Vegans the internets over remain unimpressed.

In producing the film, HBO also engaged the services of American Humane’s Film & Television Unit, which is the exclusive monitoring and granting agency to award the coveted “No Animals Were Harmed”® end-credit disclaimer. The production followed American Humane’s strict Guidelines for the Safe Use of Animals in Filmed Media, had an American Humane Certified Animal Safety Representative™ on set to ensure animal safety and welfare, and earned the famous assurance to viewers that “no animals were harmed” in the making of the movie. Learn more about American Humane’s Film & Television Unit.

Wherein “accidental” deaths don’t qualify as “harmful,” and the AHA has about as much authority (or will) to enforce its guidelines on film sets as the USDA does to uphold its own animal “welfare” and worker safety regulations in slaughterhouses.

Clearly, the American Humane Association and its Film and Television Unit merit a whole series of posts, well beyond the group’s dubious support of a woman who’s dedicated her life to slaughtering sentient beings in the name of “welfare.” But let’s save that for another day.

Returning to Temple Grandin, here’s a trailer for the film:

My initial thoughts:

- My ‘tween girl crush on Claire Danes (hello, My So-Called Life! Romeo + Juliet, holla!) notwithstanding, I hate, hate, hate her in this movie. Marble mouth, anyone? And what’s with the forced quirkiness? She’s autistic, ferchrissakes, not British. Or a CAPS TALKER!

- Worse still, I hate Danes for making this movie – for thinking that Grandin is a worthy/inspiring/interesting enough individual to dedicate several months of one’s life to telling and even celebrating her life story. The woman facilitates murder for a living. Get a clue, feminists and dis/ability advocates!

- The association of disability (specifically, autism) with deep spirituality and an innate connection to nature is patronizing and insulting. Seriously, people, stereotypes are stereotypes, whether superficially positive or not. Knock it the fuck off already.

- [Updated to add:] Casting an actor without a disability to portray an individual with a disability is arguably similar to casting a white actor to play a person of color, blackface and all. Differently abled actors are ready, willing and able to appear on screen – and need the work more than their non-disabled counterparts, y’all. If autistic people are so magical, hire one.

- Are those cows actual “livestock” or “acting” animals? Perhaps they were slaughtered, dismembered and processed into meatstuffs on-site, so that Danes could better understand her subject’s career accomplishments? In all seriousness, I wonder if she visited a slaughterhouse as part of her “research”? (Asks the blogger who’s too lazy to research her own question.) Because, if so, her willingness to go through with the film after witnessing Grandin’s “good deeds” up close and personal would make her all the more whacked.

- If being processed into hamburgers is so awesome and noble and meaningful, why isn’t Grandin lining up?

- Methinks we need to hire Echo (RIP, Dollhouse) to liberate those cows before Grandin leads them all to their “happy,” “humane” deaths. That, I’d watch.

* Feeling stabby yet?

Crossposted from V for Vegan.

Caution: spoilers ahead!

Normally, I’m not one for musicals (Little Shop of Horrors and Grease notwithstanding!). That said, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street struck my fancy right away. Now, I could attribute this to the film’s macabre, Gothic Victorian setting, or to the dynamic star/director duo of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton; and, while these are both ginormous positives, I’d be lying if I said that either of these is what compelled me to dabble in a genre I tend to pass up. Nope, as much as I love a Goth Depp/Burton vehicle, Sweeney Todd reeled this vegan misanthrope in with promises of cannibalism. Cannibalism is the shit.

Sweeney Todd opens with the titular character’s arrival in London. “Return to London,” actually: in a former life, Sweeney Todd was one Benjamin Barker (also a barber). But we’ll get to Barker’s story in a moment.

We first meet Sweeney Todd as he and a young sailor dock in a London port. Whereas Todd’s traveling companion, Anthony, marvels at the beauty of London, Sweeney will have none of it. His gloomy, sullen mood sets the tone for the rest of the film: shades of black, gray and blue, colored only by the red crimson of blood spilt.

No Place Like London

[Anthony]
I have sailed the world,
beheld its wonders
from the Dardanelles,
to the mountains of Peru,
But there’s no place like London!

[Sweeney Todd]
No, there’s no place like London…

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Mr. Todd?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
You are young…
Life has been kind to you…
You will learn.

There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren’t worth what a pig can spit
and it goes by the name of London…
At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo
turning beauty to filth and greed…
I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru
but there’s no place like London!

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Is everything alright Mr. Todd?

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
I beg your indulgence, Antony,
But my mind is far from easy.
And these very streets are
filled with shadows,
Every last one of ‘em.

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Shadows?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
There was a barber and his wife
and she was beautiful…
a foolish barber and his wife.
She was his reason for his life…
and she was beautiful,
and she was virtuous.
And he was naive.

There was another man who saw
that she was beautiful…
A pious vulture of the law
who, with a gesture of his claw,
removed the barber from his plate!
Then there was nothing but to wait!
And she would fall!
So soft!
So young!
So lost
and oh, so beautiful!

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Oh!
The lady, sir, did she, succumb?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
Ah, that was many years ago…
I doubt if anyone would know.

Here, Sweeney Todd and Anthony part company. Still singing contemptuously of “people who are filled with shit,” Sweeney wanders onto Fleet Street, and right into Mrs. Lovett’s Minced Meat Pie Shop. The proud (?) purveyor of “the worst pies in London,” Mrs. Nellie Lovett breaks into a song about pies made of “pet” pussycats and stray animals “dyin’ in the street,” all due to the high “price of meat.” As she prepares a minced meat pie for Sweeney Todd, we’re treated to gratuitous images of bugs crawling on her kitchen counter and right across the dough. The minced “meat,” which Mrs. Lovett scoops into a raw pie with a ladle, looks like slop – not fit for human consumption. Indeed, it takes hard liquor to wash the taste of one of Mrs. Lovett’s pies out of Sweeney’s mouth.

It’s during the next musical number that we learn of the fate of Sweeney Todd’s wife and daughter. Mrs. Lovett’s establishment, you see, sits right under Sweeney’s old apartment.

Poor Thing

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
You got a room over the shop, haven’t you? If times are so hard, why don’t you rent it out?

[Mrs. Lovett]
People think it’s haunted.

[Sweeney Todd]
Haunted?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yeah. And who’s to say they’re wrong? You see, years ago something happened up here. Something not very nice.
(sung)
There was a barber and his wife.
And he was beautiful…
A proper artist with a knife,
but they transported him for life.
And he was beautiful…
(spoken)
Barker his name was.
Benjamin Barker.

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
What was his crime?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Foolishness…
He had this wife, ya see.
Pretty little thing,
silly little nit.
Had her chance for the moon on a string…
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
There was this judge, ya see…
Wanted her like mad!
Everyday he sent her a flower
But did she come down from her tower?
Sat up there and sulked by the hour
Poor fool!
Ah, but there was worse yet to come
Pure thing!
Well, Beadle calls on her all polite
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
The judge, he tells her, is all contright.
He blames himself for her dreadful plight.
She must come straight to his house tonight!
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
Of course when she goes there…
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
They’re having this ball all in masks.
There’s no one she knows there!
Poor dear!
Poor thing!
She wonders, tormented and drinks!
Poor thing!
The judge has repented, she thinks.
Poor thing!
“Oh where is Judge Turpin?” she asks…
He was there, alright!
Only not so contrite!
She wasn’t no match for such craft, ya see.
And everyone thought it so drull.
They figured she had to be daft, ya see.
So all of them stood there and laughed, ya see!
Poor soul!
Poor thing!

Judge Turpin, coveting Sweeney Todd’s wife, had him imprisoned in exile on false charges. In Todd’s absence, he raped Mrs. Barker, who then – according to Mrs. Lovett – poisoned herself with arsenic. After Mrs. Barker’s tragic end, Turpin assumed guardianship of Barker’s baby daughter.

Upon learning his wife and child’s fate, Sweeney Todd devises a plan to exact revenge upon those who have wronged him. With the help of his trusty friends – a dazzling array of gleaming silver straight razors – Todd plots to revive his barber shop and establish a reputation as the most skilled barber in all of London, thus luring the Judge in for a shave – a shave dripping with “rubies,” that is. (Cue evil laughter.)

In the meantime, the story shifts back to Anthony, idly exploring the streets of London. Stopping to rest on a street-side bench, he spies a beautiful young woman across the way. Perched in the window of a foreboding, castle-like mansion, this Rapunzel-like figure sings a song of melancholy and sadness to the caged bird who flutters about next to her.

Green Finch and Linnett Bird

[Johanna]
Green finch, and linnet bird,
Nightingale, blackbird,
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate
sitting in cages
never taking wing?
Outside the sky waits
beckoning!
Beckoning!
Just beyond the bars…
How can you remain
staring at the rain
maddened by the stars?
How is it you sing
anything?
How is it you sing?

My cage has many rooms
damask and dark…
Nothing there sings,
not even my lark.
Larks never will, you know,
when they’re captive.
Teach me to be more
adaptive.
Ah…
Green Finch, and Linnet Bird,
nightingale, blackbird,
teach me how to sing.
If I cannot fly…
Let me sing.

Mid-song, the woman notices Anthony noticing her, and her gaze shifts such that she appears to be singing to him. Abruptly, she vanishes from the window, as if interrupted by an intruder (her captor, no doubt). Inquiring of a nearby homeless woman, Anthony learns that “Rapuzel’s” name is Johanna – Johanna, ward of Judge Turpin, who

Keeps her snug he does. All locked up.
So don’t you go trespassin’ there or it’s a good whipping for you
or any other young man with mischief on his mind!

Later that night, lingering just outside Judge Turpin’s gate, Anthony vows to spring Johanna from her prison:

Johanna

[Anthony]
I feel you Johanna
I feel you
Do they think that walls can hide you?
Even now I’m at you window
I am in the dark beside you
Buried sweetly in your yellow hair
Johanna
I’ll steal you
Johanna
I feel you
Johanna
I feel you
Johanna
I’ll steal you

Like her companion the bird, Johanna is a prisoner. No, not just a prisoner: a toy, a plaything, a piece of property. After Mrs. Barker’s demise, Judge Turpin held onto the young girl, imprisoned her in a gilded cage, grooming her for marriage at a later date. (But not late enough: she is 16 years of age, if that.) Johanna is her mother’s “replacement.” She is not a companion, but a pet – like the flightless lark, she has been made slave to the whims of another.

While Anthony promises to rescue Johanna from her prison, he does not offer her liberation. Rather than free her, he intends to steal her: an illegal transfer of property, if you will. Things are bought, sold, traded and thieved; beings are not. Possibly this is just an unfortunate choice of words, forced by a need for rhyme (i.e., “I’ll steal you / I feel you”). Still, in the context of “Green Finch and Linnett Bird” – not to mention, Sweeney Todd’s half of the duo, in which he refers to Johanna as a “lamb” and a “pet” – Anthony’s use of “steal” over “free” or similar seems to be deliberate (and akin to Mrs. Mooney’s theft of the neighborhood cats). As a character, Johanna is never developed into her own person. To us, she’s only presented as the object of a man’s desires, be he her father, her suitor, or her guardian.

Back on Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd’s plans are taking shape. In short order, he challenges the reigning town barber to a shave-off and wins handily, thus cementing his reputation as the most skilled barber in London. His victory does not go unnoticed; Turpin’s associate Beadle Bamford is in attendance, and promises to stop by for a shave. But wait – a hitch! Adolfo Pirelli – the defeated barber and purveyor of Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir – recognizes Sweeney from his days as Benjamin Barker. The first visitor to Sweeney’s shop, Pirelli also becomes Sweeney’s first victim: when Pirelli tries to blackmail Sweeney, the latter responds with violence, slashing Pirelli’s neck open with a straight razor. Unsure how he’ll dispose of the body, he stuffs Pirelli in a trunk for safekeeping.

Shortly thereafter, Turpin himself stops in for a shave. It seems that Bamford encouraged his benefactor to avail himself of Sweeney Todd’s services in order to, ahem, soften the heart of a would-be fiancé. I think you know where this is going.

Ladies and their Sensitivities

[Judge]
(spoken)
Walk home with me, for I have news for you
In order to shield her from the evils of this world,
I have decided to marry Johanna next Monday.

[Beadle]
(spoken)
Ah, sir happy news.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Strange, when I offered myself to her, she showed a certain reluctance.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Excuse me my lord
May I request my lord,
Permission my lord to speak?

Forgive me if I suggest my lord
You’re looking less than your best my lord,
There’s powder upon your vest my lord,
And stubble upon your cheek.

And ladies my lord
Are weak

[Judge]
(spoken)
Perhaps if she greets me cordially upon my return I shall give her a small gift.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Ladies in their sensitivities my lord,
Have a fragile sensibility.
When a girl’s emergent,
Probably it’s urgent,
You differ to her gentility, my lord.

Personal disorder cannot be ignored,
Given their gentile proclivities.
Meaning no offense,
It happens they resents it,
Ladies in their sensitivities my lord.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Stubble you say?
Perhaps at times I am over hasty with my morning ablutions.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Fret not though my lord,
I know a place my lord,
A barber my lord of skill.
Thus armed with a shaven face my lord,
Some eau de cologne to grace my lord,
And musk to enhance the chase my lord,
You’ll dazzle the girl until.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Until??

[Beadle]
(sung)
She bows to your every will

[Judge]
(spoken)
Perhaps you may be right, take me to him.

The next scene, a musical duet between Johanna’s father and her captor/rapist, is one fraught with tension and more than a little nausea born of perversity. In “Pretty Women,” Turpin tells Sweeney all about his “true love,” with whom he is “infatuated,” and to whom he is an “ardent and eager slave.” (As if.) Playing along, biding his time, Sweeney can only smile and harmonize with his adversary, patiently waiting for the moment when steel meets flesh.

Alas, just as Sweeney is about to slash Turpin’s neck clean open, Anthony bursts into the room, a burst of nervous energy interrupting the scene’s climax. Immediately recognizing the boy, Turpin jumps from the chair, ranting and raging about the company Sweeney keeps. He storms from the shop, promising never to return.

Sweeney unleashes his rage on Anthony and Mrs. Lovett in turn, treating each to a verbal lashing; Anthony runs from the shop, while Mrs. Lovett manages to calm Sweeney (but barely). With Turpin gone, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are left with the dilemma that is Pirelli’s dead body.

A Little Priest

[Mrs. Lovett]
That’s all very well, but what we gonna do about him?

[Sweeney Todd]
Later on when it’s dark, we’ll take it to some secret place and bury him

[Mrs. Lovett]
Oh yeah. Of course we could do that. I don’t ‘spose he’s got any relatives gonna come pokin’ ’round lookin’ for him.
Seems a downright shame…

[Sweeney Todd]
Shame?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Seems an awful waste…
Such a nice, plump frame
Wot’s ‘is name has…
Had…
Has
Nor it can’t be traced…
Bus’ness needs a lift,
Debts to be erased…
Think of it as thrift,
As a gift,
If you get my drift

Seems an awful waste…
I mean, with the price of meat
What it is,
When you get it,
If you get it…

[Sweeney Todd]
Ah!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Good, you got it!

Take, for instance, Mrs. Mooney and her pie shop!
Bus’ness never better using only pussycats and toast!
Now a pussy’s good for maybe six or seven at the most!
And I’m sure they can’t compare as far as taste!

[Simultaneously]

[Sweeney Todd]
Mrs. Lovett, what a charming notion

[Mrs. Lovett]
Well, it does seem a waste…

[Sweeney Todd]
Eminently practical
And yet appropriate as always!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Think about it…

[Sweeney Todd]
Mrs. Lovett, how I’ve lived
Without you all these years, I’ll never know!
How delectable!
Also undetectable!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Lots of other gentlemen’ll
Soon be comin’ for a shave,
Won’t they?
Think of
All them
Pies!

[Sweeney Todd]
How choice!
How
Rare!
For what’s the sound of the world out there?

[Mrs. Lovett]
What, Mr. Todd?
What, Mr. Todd?
What is that sound?

[Sweeney Todd]
Those crunching noises pervading the air!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, all around!

[Sweeney Todd]
It’s man devouring man, my dear!

[Both]
And/Then who are we to deny it in here?

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken) These are desperate times,
Mrs. Lovett, and desperate measures are called for!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Here we are, now! Hot out of the oven!

[Sweeney Todd]
What is that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
It’s priest. Have a little priest.

[Sweeney Todd]
Is it really good?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Sir, it’s too good, at least!
Then again, they don’t commit sins of the flesh,
So it’s pretty fresh.

[Sweeney Todd]
Awful lot of fat.

[Mrs. Lovett]
Only where it sat.

[Sweeney Todd]
Haven’t you got poet, or something like that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
No, y’see, the trouble with poet is
‘Ow do you know it’s deceased?
Try the priest!

Lawyer’s rather nice.

[Sweeney Todd]
If it’s for a price.

[Mrs. Lovett]
Order something else, though, to follow,
Since no one should swallow it twice!

[Sweeney Todd]
Anything that’s lean?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Well, then, if you’re British and loyal,
You might enjoy Royal Marine!
Anyway, it’s clean.
Though of course, it tastes of wherever it’s been!

[Sweeney Todd]
Is that squire, on the fire?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Mercy no, sir, look closer,
You’ll notice it’s grocer!

[Sweeney Todd]
Looks thicker,
More like vicar!

[Mrs. Lovett]
No, it has to be grocer –
It’s green!

[Sweeney Todd]
The history of the world, my love –

[Mrs. Lovett]
Save a lot of graves,
Do a lot of relatives favors!

[Sweeney Todd]
Is those below serving those up above!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Ev’rybody shaves,
So there should be plenty of flavors!

[Sweeney Todd]
How gratifying for once to know

[Both]
That those above will serve those down below!

[Sweeney Todd]
What is that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
It’s fop.
Finest in the shop.
And we have some shepherd’s pie peppered
With actual shepherd on top!
And I’ve just begun –
Here’s the politician, so oily
It’s served with a doily,
Have one!

[Sweeney Todd]
Put it on a bun.
Well, you never know if it’s going to run!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Try the friar,
Fried, it’s drier!

[Sweeney Todd]
No, the clergy is really
Too coarse and too mealy!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Then actor,
It’s compacter!

[Sweeney Todd]
Ah but always arrives overdone!
(spoken) I’ll come again when you have judge on the menu!

(singing) Have charity towards the world, my pet!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yes, yes, I know, my love!

[Sweeney Todd]
We’ll take the customers that we can get!

[Mrs. Lovett]
High-born and low, my love!

[Sweeney Todd]
We’ll not discriminate great from small!
No, we’ll serve anyone,
Meaning anyone,

[Both]
And to anyone
At all!

Possibly this is my favorite number in the film; Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett ogle the Englishmen and women walking the street, wondering aloud which bodies might yield the tastiest flesh – much like shoppers browsing the different “cuts” of animal corpse displayed in front of a butcher’s counter. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nonhuman animals are no more and no less “meat” than are humans. We’re all made of the same yummy stuff – and we’re all a potential meal to someone else.

Of course, Sweeney doesn’t act on a secret agenda of animal liberation; rather, he’s just a bitter and vengeful man, miserable in his old(er) age – and can you really blame him? However, after the cause of and would-be/should-be outlet for his anger escapes unharmed, he begins to take revenge on all the men of London.

[Sung angry]
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and it’s filled with people who are filled with shit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long…

[Morbid thoughts, sung]
They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two.
There’s the one staying put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one’s face.
Look at me, Mrs. Lovett, look at you.
Now we all deserve to die.
Even you, Mrs. Lovett, even I.
Because of the lives of the wicked should be made brief.
For the rest of us death will be a relief.
We all deserve to die!

In order to maximize the efficiency (and secrecy) of their “slaughterhouse,” Sweeney constructs a trap door in front of his barber chair. Once he’s slaughtered an unwitting victim, he simply tilts the chair forward, thus dumping “his” corpse down a chute to the basement below the building. There, Mrs. Lovett dismembers, processes and bakes the bodies into all manner of delicious minced meat pies, turning her shop into an overnight success.

Ladies and gentlemen,
May I have your attention, please?
Are your nostrils aquiver and tingling as well
At that delicate, luscious ambrosial smell?
Yes they are, I can tell.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,
That aroma enriching the breeze
Is like nothing compared to its succulent source,
As the gourmets among you will tell you, of course.

Ladies and gentlemen,
You can’t imagine the rapture in store
Just inside of this door!

You might even say the deaths of Sweeney’s victims are more “humane” than those of the ten billion land animals Americans enslave, torture, slaughter, process and consume every year. Unlike virtually all of these animals, Sweeney’s “meat products” lived truly free-range existences prior to their deaths, were not cognizant of their fates until the very end, and thus suffered very little in comparison to our “food” animals. “Happy meat,” anyone?

Anyhow, as Sweeney commences with the bloodletting, Anthony and Johanna devise a plan to run away together. Given that the plan unfolds in the context of a dark comedy, naturally, it’s doomed from the start. Foiled by Turpin, Johanna is committed to a mental institution. No, “mental institution” is too kind a word – an insane asylum. Desperate, Anthony turns to Sweeney Todd for help. Sweeney proposes a plan: Anthony should visit the asylum disguised as a wig-maker’s apprentice, in search of women’s hair to purchase for use in wigs. Once inside, he can escape with Johanna.

Happily, Sweeney’s scheme works – and yet, he does not live long enough to reunite with his estranged daughter. Anthony rushes Johanna back to the barber shop, hiding her in the empty room while he heads out in search of a carriage. Subsequently, the homeless woman – a constant in the story’s background – heads up in search of Johanna, who hides from the stranger in the same trunk that once held Pirelli’s body. (You’ve got to wonder what she thought of all that blood!) As the woman flits about the room, Sweeney bursts in; the two exchange few words

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
who are you? What are you doing here?

[Beggar Woman]
(spoken)
Evil it is, Sir. the stink of evil from below! From her! she’s the devil’s wife! beware of her sir. She, with no pity in her
heart!
(sung)
hey, don’t i know you mister?

before he slits her throat, too. Down the chute she goes, a beggar no more.

In bursts Turpin, hot on Johanna’s heels. Sweeney is able to entice him into the barber’s chair for a second round; this time, Sweeney emerges victorious. He slays Turpin and disposes of his body down the chute, where it falls with a thud on that of the homeless woman. Johanna witnesses the murder – and Sweeney witnesses her witnessing the murder. Dressed in men’s clothing, Sweeney mistakes his daughter for a young boy, and threatens her with his straight razor. Before he can harm his “pet,” a scream arises from the basement, and Sweeney rushes downstairs to find Mrs. Lovett shuffling the two corpses around. (The reason for her fright? It seems that Mr. Turpin was still alive and kicking upon arriving in the oven room. No matter, Mrs. Lovett dispatched of him forthwith.)

Now stooping to get a better look at the homeless woman – his first and only female victim – Sweeney Todd recognizes a face from his past.

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
“Don’t I know you”, she said… you knew she lived.

[Mrs. Lovett]
(spoken)
I was only thinking of you

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
you lied to me

[Mrs. Lovett]
no, no, not lied at all
no I never lied

[Sweeney Todd & Mrs. Lovett]
Lucy, said she took a
poison, she did,
I’ve never said that she
died! poor thing,
come she lived, but it
left her weak in the
home head all she did for
months was just lie
again there in bed. should
have been in
Lucy! hospital, wound up
in Bedlam instead
oh my poor thing, better
you should think she
God was dead, yes I lied
cause I love you.
Lucy I’d be twice the
wife she was I
what love you. could that
thing have cared for
have I you, like me?
done?

As their final duet reaches a crescendo – and the pair inch almost imperceptibly towards the oven, door open, fire raging – Sweeney Todd hurls Mrs. Lovett into the inferno, where she melts into the flames.

Having dispensed of the “Devil’s Wife,” Sweeney kneels beside his own wife, cradling her body in his arms. Out of the shadows of the sewer, Mrs. Lovett’s helper boy/surrogate son Toby comes, straight razor in hand. In the film’s final moments, Sweeney meets the same end as that of his countless victims, including Lucy, his “reason and his life.”

Amid the morbid, cannibalistic comedy lurks a commentary on the corrupting nature of hate, violence and vengeance. Consumed by the need for revenge, Sweeney did not see the possibilities for redemption that lay before him. His wife and daughter were still alive, still in need of him; and while life could never be as it once was, they Barkers might still have (re)built their family. Man the destroyer, vs. man the nurturer.

Also part of this twist is the Devil’s Wife, Mrs. Lovett. While young Toby, suspecting Sweeney of mass murder, fears for his adopted mother, in truth Toby should have been terrified of the both of them. They fed into one another’s “black pits,” creating a monster. (Although I’m afraid that there’s no small amount of misogyny in the story’s suggestion that Mrs. Lovett – the “seductress” – corrupted Sweeney Todd. To the extent that it does, anyhow; I suppose it’s open to multiple readings.)

Of course, there’s also the unfortunate use of “vermin” to denote death, decay and rottenness. While rats do thrive in unsanitary environs, they do not create these conditions; no, I am afraid that that is the job of humans!

Nor does the film pass the Bechdel test or include any people not of European descent.

Crossposted from V for Vegan.

Caution: Major spoilers ahead.

While The Men Who Stare at Goats is by no means an animal rights or overtly anti-vivisection movie, it does (happily!) have a few animal-friendly moments.

Based on a 2004 book of the same name by journalist Jon Ronson, the film is a dramatized account of Ronson’s investigation into “psychic” warfare experiments conducted by the U.S. military in the ’70s and ’80s. Ostensibly a story for the skeptic set (indeed, that’s why the husband and I saw it in the theater), the film also at turns sentimentalizes the “free love,” hippie sensibilities and mysticism of the ’60s and ’70s. (Indeed, it concludes on a disappointingly “anything is possible if you believe” note.)

Anyhow, along with all the “flower power” comes not a little tree- and animal-hugging. Goat-hugging, to be more specific: because the army’s more “practical” experiments involve trauma training carried out on live animals, the medical school’s in-house goats also play a role in the aforementioned psychic experimentation – the purposes of which isn’t nearly as sadistic as the trailers let on.

Lest I get ahead of myself, here’s a brief synopsis, via Wiki:

The film follows Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who one day interviews Gus Lacey, a man who claims to have psychic abilities. Bob shrugs Lacey off as crazy. Soon after, Bob’s wife leaves him for his one-armed editor. Bob, out of anger, flies to Kuwait to investigate the Iraq War. However, he stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets Special Forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Lyn reveals that he was part of an American army unit training psychic spies (or “Jedi Warriors”), trained to develop a range of parapsychological skills including invisibility, remote viewing, cloud bursting, walking through walls, and intuition.

The founder of this unit, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), traveled across America in the 1970s for six years exploring a range of New Age movements (including the Human potential movement), because of a vision he received after getting shot during the Vietnam War, and used these experiences to found the New Earth Army. In the 1980s, two of Django’s best recruits were Lyn Cassady and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who developed a lifelong rivalry because of their opposing views of how to implement the New Earth Army philosophy; Lyn wanted to emphasize the positive side of the teachings, whereas Larry was more interested in the dark side of the philosophy.

In the early 2000s Bob and Lyn embark on a new mission in Iraq, where they are kidnapped by a criminal gang. They escape with fellow kidnapping victim Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and get rescued by a private security firm led by Todd Nixon (Robert Patrick), but get caught up in a firefight between Todd’s security firm and a rival security firm; this would later be known as the “Battle of Ramadi.” Mahmud, Bob and Lyn escape from the firefight and go to Mahmud’s house, which has been shot up by soldiers. From there Bob and Lyn leave to continue on Lyn’s vague mission involving a vision he had of Bill Django.

Here it’s worth noting that Cassady recounts the story of Django and the New Earth Army as his Iraqi adventure with Wilton unfolds in parallel. Both tales begin on a light, humorous note, eventually taking turns for the worse. While the trailers and media interviews done in promotion of the movie tend to emphasize the New Earth Army’s more nefarious projects, Django began the program with the best of intentions: namely, achieving world peace through love and understanding. A laudable goal, to be sure – even if its implementation proved somewhat ridiculous.

However, Hooper eventually betrays Django, assuming control of the New Earth Army in order to corrupt it. (Think of Django as Obi-Wan Kenobi to Cassady’s Luke Sywalker and Hooper’s Darth Vader.) The peace, love and understanding of Django’s ’60s and ’70s give way to the greed, militarization and subjugation of – what? The Reagen ’80s? The Clinton ’90s? The Bush ’00s? All of the above? Take your pick! (The Men Who Stare at Goats is, if not anti-war, at least anti-torture.)

Point being, the original recruits to the New Earthy Army enlisted in order to make love – not war. Whereas the The Men Who Stare at Goats advertising blitz paints the New Earth Army soldiers as hyper-masculine parodies of military men, bent on defeating – nay, annihilating! – the enemy through mind control and super-scary bio-psychic combat, the program’s impetus was the polar opposite of this. The operation’s very name – the New Earth Army – is indicative of this “higher calling.”
 

The struggle between the Light and Dark sides is perhaps most eloquently played out on the body of a goat. After Django’s departure from the military, Hooper is placed in command of the New Earth Army. Under Hooper’s orders, Cassady reluctantly “stares” one of the goats from the trauma lab “to death” – supposedly, he makes her heart explode with his mind. (Groovy, man!) In retelling his story to Wilton, Cassady points to the goat’s needless death as the moment the New Earth Army fell to the Dark Side. Memories of “murdering” the goat evoke feelings of shame and guilt in Cassady. The goat didn’t need to die; she was an innocent. In killing her, Cassady abused his power and violated the tenants of the New Earth Army.

I filed this post under “Intersections” because of the linkages drawn here: the goat’s murder sets off a chain reaction that leads to the abuse, oppression and torture of countless “others” – many of them human. Violence begets violence.

This is only one of two goat-hugging scenes, however. As you were, Wiki:

After their car hits an IED, Bob and Lyn wander in the desert where Lyn reveals a terrible secret to Bob: Lyn was asked to stop a goat’s heart to test the limit of his mental abilities. Lyn had decided against it, but was compelled to try to accomplish the feat and stared at the goat intently. Lyn managed to stop the goat’s heart, but felt that what he did was inhumane and against the entire purpose of the New Earth Army. Lyn left the Army, believing that he and the other New Earth soldiers were cursed and his powers were gone because of that fateful episode. After spending a few days in the desert, Bob and Lyn get rescued and rehabilitated at a camp run by PSIC, a private research firm engaged in psychological and psychic experiments on a herd of goats and some captured locals. To Lyn’s dismay, Larry Hooper runs the firm and employs a now depressed and alcoholic Django.

Bob spends time with Django and learns the ways of the New Earth Army and together they spike the water and food of the base with LSD and free both the goats and captured locals. Following this, Lyn and Django fly off in a Bell JetRanger helicopter, but not before trusting Bob with the duty of making sure his story reaches the public. Bob reveals that neither Lyn nor Django were ever heard from again, believed to have crashed their helicopter.

The audience realizes that Hooper has graduated to human test subjects when Wilton stumbles upon back rooms filled with imprisoned Middle Eastern men. (Unlike the Wiki reviewer, I read them as suspected “terrorists” whose torture was sanctioned by the U.S. military, as opposed to kidnapped locals. Not this this is any better, mind you.) Inside the tiny, barren cells, the men are exposed to a seemingly never-ending loop of violent audiovisual imagery; the experiments appear to involve sleep deprivation and/or sensory over-stimulation of some sort. (Similar to the brainwashing/torture Benjamin Linus visited upon his daughter’s boyfriend Karl in Lost; see Season 3, Episode 7 – Not in Portland. February, you cannot get here soon enough!)

Naturally, both Wilton and Cassady are horrified at this turn of events, not to mention Django’s cooptation by the enemy. High on LSD, they free Hooper’s prisoners – humans and nonhumans alike. While this scene is a bit melodramatic, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up at the liberation of the goats. Sure, the goats were perhaps an afterthought – but at least they were, in the end, deserving of moral consideration.

Before closing this review out, I should add that the animal labs are one aspect of the story that isn’t made up. The U.S. military has a long history of vivisecting nonhuman animals; they still do so, in fact.

As much as I hate linking to PETA:

Every year, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) conducts trauma and chemical-casualty training exercises in which animals are used as “stand-ins” for wounded soldiers. Medical officers at military installations across the nation critically injure thousands of live animals before killing them. In trauma training exercises, live pigs are shot, stabbed, and set on fire and live goats have their legs broken with bolt cutters and cut off with shears. During chemical-casualty training exercises, live monkeys are poisoned with harmful chemicals. These animals are also often forced to suffer through hellish conditions as they are transported to facilities for this training.

The DoD is putting soldiers’ lives at risk by using animals in these experiments. The anatomies and physiologies of pigs, goats, and monkeys are drastically different than those of humans; therefore, these animals will respond differently to treatments than humans would.

There are numerous non-animal training methods available, including rotations in civilian trauma centers; the Combat Trauma Patient Simulation system (CTPS); the Simulab Corporation’s TraumaMan system; and Dr. Emad Aboud’s “living” cadaver model, which Dr. Aboud has personally demonstrated for the Army.

Neither the Air Force Expeditionary Medical Skills Institute’s Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills nor the Navy Trauma Training Center use animals for trauma training—more proof that it is not necessary to use animals in order to teach these treatment skills.

While pigs seem to be the most common victims today, they’re merely the “new goats”; in this vein, then, The Men Who Stare at Goats is spot-on. When we’re first introduced to the goats, a soldier from the animals lab says ruefully, “We used to use dogs, but you try shooting a dog while he’s licking your hand.” Cut to crazy adorable footage of an oversized puppy giving doggy kisses to a manly man soldier wielding a comically large (in comparison to the pup) gun, his eyes welling with tears. The audience is meant to laugh, but the fact remains: pigs are as intelligent as dogs (if not more so), and are quite dog-like in their behavior (as anyone who’s been following the happy tails of Izzy and Morty knows). Besides, be she dog, pig, goat, cow, chicken or girl, all animals are alike in every way that matters: all share the ability to think, feel, bond, relate – and suffer. Trauma training on a pig is no better and no worse than that on a goat, puppy or person.

For more on the military’s use and abuse on nonhuman animals – including opportunities to take action – see:

PCRM: Improving Military Medicine, including Be Part of Citizen Lobbyist Week: Jan. 11-15, 2010

PETA: Trauma Training 101, including this action alert: Tell Congress to End Military Trauma Training on Animals

Kinship Circle: Stop The Military’s War On Innocents and STOP THE U.S. MILITARY FROM USING LIVE ANIMALS

The Petition Site: Ban Military Trauma Exercises on Animals

HSUS: Live Pigs Shot for Military Trauma Exercise and Questions and Answers About Medical Training Using Animals

Finally – and just because, as y’all no doubt are already aware, I have a raging hard-on for everything The Colbert Report – here are a few segments Stephen did on the (fluffyfunpsychic) goat labs back in September.

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Videos in this post

‘Men Who Stare at Goats’ Trailer HD
The story of a secret unit within the US Army called the First Earth Battalion, whose paranormal military ideas mutated over the decades to influence interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay.

The Colbert Report, Thursday, September 17, 2009 – Goat Lab
Stephen resurrects the U.S. military technique of staring at a goat to make its heart explode. (03:35)

The Colbert Report, Thursday, September 17, 2009 – Goat Lab – Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson explains why the U.S. military trained soldiers to use sparkly eyes on the enemy and kill goats with their minds. (04:24)

…and the early battle scenes in Qatar? In poor taste, to say the least. Watching American soldiers and Middle Easterners being blown to smithereens isn’t so much entertaining as it is depressing.

Also depressing was this statement, part of Optimus Prime’s endless moralizing: “All sentient beings deserve freedom”. (Or perhaps it was more along the lines of “All sentient being deserve the right to live”…I forget now.) Really? All sentient beings? Because, like, “sentient” isn’t codeword for “human+”.

Sentience refers to utilization of sensory organs, the ability to feel or perceive subjectively, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness. The possession of sapience is not a necessity. The word sentient is often confused with the word sapient, which can connote knowledge, consciousness, or apperception.

Sadly, and despite the obvious implications of such an animal-friendly statement, Transformers was hardly a pro-AR movie. On the contrary; one of Optimus Prime’s cronies (you know, the “good” “guys”) wanted to kill a dog (which he* saw as evidence of a “rodent infestation”) for pissing on his foot. Uh, yeah, maybe y’all should modify that statement to “All sapient beings…” I hate to break it to the screenwriters, but dogs are sentient, you dumbasses.

The effects were pretty cool, though.

* Though Shane doth protest, the Transformers are all clearly uber-masculine entities. Androgynous they aint.