PETA’s State of the Union. Definitely not work-safe: Naked chicks and abused animals.
I must say, PETA makes me want to go eat a hamburger. The naked chicks schtick is getting mighty old. They lost me for good during their “holocaust on a plate” campaign, but every time I see a video or ad like this one, I want to be a carnivore simply out of spite. Because, clearly, they care more about the dignity of a trout than they do about the dignity of a human being.
And I’m someone who is incredibly sympathetic to their cause. I was a vegetarian for 11 years. In eighth grade, I mounted a letter-writing and petition campaign against animal testing. I seek out products which are cruelty-free. I do eat meat now, but rarely. I don’t rule out the idea of returning to vegetarianism.
But they are so incredibly self-serving it makes me sick. Their campaigns aren’t about animal cruelty anymore — they’re about PETA. And how outrageous PETA can be in order to get attention.
In this clip, a young woman goes from wearing a business suit and giving a State of the Union address to stripping down completely naked (Brazilian wax and all). How exactly that promotes animal rights is still beyond me.
Their point seems to volley between “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” and “When women get naked it’s like they’re meat.” The lovely Hugo sent me The Sexual Politics of Meat for my birthday in August, and the author delves quite deeply into the idea that we disassociate ourselves from what we eat — we see it as a steak rather than animal flesh. Meat is tied to masculinity, and women themselves are held up as “meat” to be consumed. It’s a fascinating read, even if I don’t quite buy everything she asserts. But her ideas about the cross-over between meat-eating and patriarchal society are interesting, and are showcased in this clip. The woman who takes her clothes off refers to naked chicks as “an American tradition” as she’s deriding the killing of chickens for food — conveniently ignoring that there are few things more traditionally American than fried chicken and Thanksgiving turkey. In other words, “tradition” doesn’t necessarily translate into “good.”
While PETA makes an attempt to re-associate viewers with what they eat — making them recognize that your hamburger is the flesh of what used to be a living, breathing animal — they see no problem with furthering the disassociation of “woman” from “human.” “Woman” remains a product to be visually consumed — an object, the way that meat-food is. Are women born, bred and killed out of this disassociation, the way that animals are? No. But you can bet that they’re raped, murdered, abused and exploited by the millions.
So PETA can, to put it as nicely as I’m capable of putting it, go fuck themselves. When they start treating female human animals as creatures worthy of respect and not erotic novelties to be used to forward their cause, then maybe I’ll buy the idea that they’re a rights-based organization. Until then, I’ll continue to believe that PETA is primarily out to promote PETA — not animal rights, not human rights, and not anything but their own brand of outrageousness.
Thanks to Chris Clarke for the link.