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?

In honor of Earth Day, Biz Markie and the Climate Protection Action Fund want you to rap (or lip sync) along to a “clean energy” version of his ’80s classic “Just a Friend.” Repower America will provide the lyrics and instructions; you just need a web cam and an internet connection. Here are the details:

What do Earth Day, YouTube’s home page and a rap classic have in common?

You.

On April 22, we’ll be releasing a remix of the top-ten-hit song “Just a Friend” performed by Biz Markie and Repower America supporters from across the country. It’s going to be featured all day on YouTube’s home page — and you can be part of the fun!

You don’t need a perfect singing voice to get involved — and for that matter, you don’t even need to know the song. In fact, the chorus to Biz Markie’s song is famous for being beautifully off-key. If you’re still not convinced that you’re ready to bust out rapping on tape, just lip-sync or dance in your video. (Or get your kids to.) The only thing that matters is that you participate — in whatever way works for you.

We’ve got everything else you need to sing along — lyrics, music and a video showing you how to record your own version.

Check it out and add your voice to the Biz Markie Earth Day remix right now: cpaf.RepowerAmerica.org/Remix

Naturally, the “eco-friendly” lyrics ignore the role of meat, egg and dairy production in climate change – which is well in keeping with environmental organizations’ unwillingness to address human privilege and its many attendant ills. That said, perhaps some of you more creative types can work a reference or two to veganism into your own video? If you’re interested, you have to move fast – the deadline for submissions is midnight tomorrow night, April 18th. Eastern time, I presume?

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.

Did I miss something? Promote your local event, tell us all about your favorite new release, and share other animal-friendly pop culture goodies in the comments!

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.”

Though it’s taken me far too long, here’s the promised writeup of Claire Danes’s February 10th appearance on The Colbert Report.

Seeing as Danes was making the rounds in support of her new biopic, Temple Grandin, I expected to come away from this interview with a knot of frustration and anger in my stomach. In fact, I actually put off watching it for this very reason. (Which is no small feat for a fangirl of my caliber, I tell you what!) Happily, as with the Foer interview, I was pleasantly surprised by Stephen’s treatment of the subject matter.

As you can see in the video (and partial transcript) below, Stephen plays the devil’s (animals’, really) advocate, maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism in the face of claims about Grandin’s “affinity” for and “love” of nonhuman animals. He equates killing and eating cows with killing and eating dogs, to horrifically comical effect. And, best of all, the phrase “animal rights” is not uttered once, in contrast to reports of previous appearances in which Danes praised Grandin as an “animal rights advocate” – and, likewise, described herself as a supporter of animal rights (their right not to be killed and eaten seemingly aside).

[On a side note - Dear fluffyfun "green" and/or vegetarian celebrity gossip sites: can y'all please stop referring to Grandin as an "animal rights activist"? She is no such thing, and to refer to her brand of "advocacy" as rights-based is to shift the entire debate towards the exploitative. And your thoughts on welfare reform? Totally irrelevant. This is a factual dispute, not a matter of opinion. Thanks much!]

While I hadn’t intended to write such a lengthy transcript, once I started typing, I couldn’t stop. Stephen’s quips – and Danes’s reactions – are just that good. If you can, you really need to watch the video to fully appreciate Danes’s flailing responses to Stephen’s gentle-yet-snarky nudging.

It’s all after the jump, yo.

Danes: “[S]he’s also really interested in animals and animal science and designed a system in which cows would walk calmly to their deaths – so they wouldn’t be mistreated and prodded and it was also really economically efficient for the cattle industry.” [...]

Colbert: “So I have her to thank for my constant intake of beef.”

“Yes, you do! You do!”

“So it’s really kind of a pro-business story, isn’t it?”

“Exactly, yeah. It is, is it.”

“Does she – does she – does she…empathize with the cow?”

“Yeah, I think to a certain extent…[in response to audience laughter]…well, yes, she wants very much for them to have a good experience while they’re alive. She doesn’t want them to suffer.”

“Yes, ‘a good experience’ until it becomes ‘the worst possible experience.’” [Here, Danes laughs along with the audience, seemingly at the absurdity of her own - and/or Grandin's - logic.] “Because I empathize with my dog, and I’m not sure whether my idea of expressing my affection would be to open a puppy slaughter house.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, I know it seems kind of paradoxical, but, but, yeah, she believes that while they’re here, we have a responsibility to make sure that they have…a good time.”

Videos in this post

The Colbert Report – Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – Claire Danes
Claire Danes describes her role as an autistic woman who designed a system where cows can walk easily to their death. (05:51)