Is PETA the Most Juvenile and Pointless Organisation on the Planet? by Nick Bryans
Took me a while, but I managed to find a Work-Safe PETA ad. Clearly horse-drawn carriage rides aren't a sexy enough issue for them.
Becoming a vegetarian or vegan is seen by some as an assumed caveat of being, quite simply, lovely. It has the tacit implication amongst large swathes of mainstream society that you’d be a bleeding heart liberal who cares about poor people, equality and stopping nuclear proliferation. Because, after all, vegetarianism is lovely, isn’t it? Stopping the slaughter of animals is just one step away from placing daffodils in the ends of army rifles, right? Well, I’ll tell you who was a famous vegetarian – Hitler. And he loved a good scrap and was a PROPER arsehole. So how’s that for your crass generalisation, society?
Another famous group of veggies under the cosh this week is PETA. Everyone knows PETA as the group who glamorised and re-invented the stereotypical view of animal welfare campaigning. See, we used to get dishevelled hippies in tie-dye shirts, holding placards outside animal testing laboratories and catwalks; this made many people think that animal rights campaigns were the domain of unkempt layabouts who thought that the Sixties had never ended. Uncool. But then PETA appeared, and decided to mimic the business model for Nuts magazine.
Instead of tuneless chanting and occupations of medical labs, we got outstandingly attractive celebrities in the nip, telling us to wear our own skins rather than those of animals. Celebrities jumped at the chance to appear in self-righteous, heavily Photoshopped advertorials that were not just a chance for them to show off their bods, but also get some cracking PR in the process. Everyone got involved – Pamela Anderson; Jamelia; 90s pornstar, Jenna Jameson; a couple of bit-part characters from MTV’s The Hills; Celebrity Big Brother winner, Chantelle Houghton; Khloe Kardashian; Dennis Rodman; one of the guys from Linkin Park; Steve-O; and Hugh Hefner’s ex. Almost overnight, everyone – from passé reality TV icons to pornstars – became an animal rights protestor.
Possibly my favourite was NFL wide receiver, Chad Ochocinco. Chad, I’m sure, is a lovely guy. The poster below…
…conveyed his utter hatred for the use of fur (preferring tattoos). Of course, PETA got him to pose with a synthetic, “pleather” football, but this doesn’t change the fact that his career involves using a real leather football day in, day out. A leather football made from the skins of lots of dead baby unicorns (or more probably cows). He’s either a hypocrite, or just really really stupid.
PETA instantly became the en vogue organisation, and unless you were a keen supporter who felt that “sex sells” was the nadir of modern-day philanthropy, you were a cold-hearted bastard akin to Hitler (which is ironic). PETA made animal lovin’ cool… if your idea of cool was depraved, consumerist dirge aimed at the lowest common denominator in society. The campaign felt like a circle jerk for pointlessly wealthy people; famous-for-being-famous and in need of some good PR. The best part being, of course, that all they had to do was behave exactly how they did the rest of the week, only this time with a humanitarian slant on things. “No, last week’s topless shoot was for loaded magazine, dear. This one is for the polar bears.”
Anyway, your average person on the street lapped it up, because your average person on the street is a dribbling simpleton. Unfortunately, PETA clocked onto this, and began an unrelenting pursuit towards shoehorning gratuitous sexualisation into every area of their advertisements. PETA signed partnerships with the ‘lingerie football league’ and Playboy magazine, before just cutting out the middle-man and setting up their own softcore pornography site. The aim of the domain was said to be:
“to raise awareness of veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.”
You have to worry about how much faith a company has in its slogan, when they feel the only way its message can draw in a receptive audience is when it’s preceded by several minutes of two people humping each other.
PETA were back in the headlines this week when they launched an advert claiming that men who adopt a vegan diet will gain the ability to bugger their girlfriend with such vivacious tenacity, that it’ll leave the poor girl in a neck brace and walking like John Wayne. As if a heady mix of tofu and soya beans equips you with a Sting-inspired, roboplegic wrong-cock.
The advert states that men who go vegan give their girlfriends ‘BWVAKTBOOM’:
’Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me… a painful condition that occurs when boyfriends go Vegan and can suddenly bring it like a tantric porn star.’
This probably isn’t treatable with two ibuprofens and a dab-down from the magic sponge.
With the dank, grey skies, a wounded and distressed girl and the pitter-patter of unsettling piano in the background, it’s essentially a Samaritans advert for rape awareness that has been re-dubbed. Oh, but there’s also a gratuitous shot of the girl’s arse. PETA know which side their bread’s buttered on.
Again, you have to wonder whom this advert is appealing to, because outside of serial sex offenders, I have no fucking idea who wants to shag their partner into A&E. Having to whip out a full body cast after every session would kill the mood a bit, surely?
But then nothing should surprise you with PETA. Not only do they think that the prime focus for going vegan should be joining the mass of sexy people doing bonkers bonking; they also propagate that all women who aren’t sexy non-meat eaters should be mocked. In another ad campaign, PETA displayed a large woman on a billboard, under the banner, “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian.”
Pithy, you might say, but misguided, as I wouldn’t fancy my chances of losing much weight on a vegetarian diet of chips, chocolates and cheese, you weapons-grade twats (see how easy extreme rhetoric is, PETA?).
Of course, PETA can also do artistic demonstrations. Only, naturally, their artistic demonstrations are based solely around the subordination of women. Once again, they know which side their bread is buttered on. PETA, in an attempt to be all arty’ n’ shit, tried to draw parallels with humans and animals, and humanise intensive-farming conditions. They achieved this by, yes, you guessed it, sticking naked girls in cages.
What was possibly intended as a modernist, avant-garde look at farming cruelty instead resembled some horrendous installation you’d see at a strip club or provincial nitespot. Just stick a slogan at the bottom of this photo (NWS) stating ‘foam party’ or ‘Carling for £1.50’, and instantly you’ve got your next flyer sorted for student night at Liquid or Platinum Lace.
In PETA’s defence, I’m not surprised that they have based their core promotional content around sex and nudity, as their attempts to broaden their campaigns have been nothing short of appalling. In 2003, they launched an exhibition called ‘Holocaust on Your Plate’; this drew parallels between abattoirs and the Holocaust, much to chagrin of the Anti-Defamation League, unsur-fucking-prisingly. In 2005 they compared animal treatment in modern America to the African slave trade, which sent the NAACP loopy. In 2000, they ran a poster featuring then mayor of New York, Rudolf Giuliani, who had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer; parodying the ‘Got Milk?” advertising campaigns, it displayed the slogan “Got prostate cancer?”. Possibly worst of all, though, was their attempt to connect with children, by running these piss-poor, Macarthy-ite, scare-mongering cartoons called “Your Mommy Kills Animals’, like the one below.
Oh, and they also tried to get the Pet Shops Boys to change their name to the ‘Rescue Shelter Boys’, which is beyond bizarre, even for PETA. You’ll be surprised to find out that, unlike their 2009 album, the answer wasn’t ‘Yes’.
I realise I may be sounding like an utter bore with archaic opinions over what makes a cutting-edge advert, but the idea that a serious issue like animal welfare is approached with tits and teeth baffles me. It’s like pushing for peace in the Middle East with a naked girl draped in a Palestinian flag, holding her breasts and shouting, ”The only weapons I support are these!” Or even a guy chatting up multiple girls in a bar, with the tag line, “He supports the two-state solution!”
PETA’s campaigning started off stupid then dived headfirst into a nonsensical abyss. It’s low-grade, sex-obsessed nothingness, which clouds a serious issue under a veil of celebrity-hijacking, trendy themes and fashion. If you took the animal rights element out, you’d be left with campaigning that would have Emily Pankhurst spinning in her grave, and probably with the whole thing being outlawed. This advert (NWS) sums up for me all the problems with PETA’s approach. Her, naked, under the slogan, ‘If you want my body, go vegetarian.’ To a naive girl, it might work as some sort of altruistic diet motivator, whereas when an easily impressionable guy looks at that, I guarantee you it says to him, “I will fuck you if you stop eating meat. Me, sexy lady, fucking you, common simpleton. You bring the garden leaf salad, I’ll bring the neckbrace.” What it is, is unambitious, simplistic, blasé, nonsense, which has no coherent argument to support its cause; this clouds the impression the consumer gets of it with nudity, pornography and promises of god-like virility. It’s nonsense, basically.
Vegetarianism is a choice. And it’s one that I would commend people for making. Intensive farming is a massive issue, and to totally opt out of directly or indirectly supporting the industry is admirable. But to promote your cause with hyperbolic scare tactics aimed at children, trivialising the slave trade and the holocaust, treating women as subordinate sex objects and mocking people with health conditions is deplorable, and all those involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. If the only way you can support your specific campaign and approach is by gratuitous imagery or vile slogans, then your campaign probably isn’t quite as good as you think it is. You may think that what you’re doing is courageous and righteous, but doing the equivalent of shouting, “Vegetarianism makes you shit-hot in the sack! Oh, and sexy, naked girls like it!” on a billboard, just makes you look spectacularly dense.
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Top notch work, Nick.
I was in agreement before I’d read anything other than the title, but I’m mire than happy to have examples of their hypocracy/straight up idiocy.
What interests me, is that I’ve never once met a member of PETA, nor seen a demonstration of theirs, so I’m thinking it is a celebrity-only affair.
Ahhh well, off for a steak now. Possibly marinated in calf tears.
Hitler was not a vegetarian. It’s an urban myth. Research those kinds of facts before posting them or you’re as bad as PETA for being sensationalist.
I understand your point but it doesn’t mean PETA haven’t been effective in their less sensationalist campaigns. But saying that “Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.”
@Jay Guevara
Actually, Hitler probably was a vegetarian. The claim has been called in to question by some modern historians, but it has never been disproved. Personally, I’d rather stick to the reports of people who actually knew him, such as his secretary and dietician, who both report that he avoided meat.
That’s not to say that he never ate meat. He was (ironically) very anguished by the concept of animal butchery and abattoirs and often sang the praises of a non-meat diet, but that didnt stop the occasional indulgence.
Shall we meet halfway and say……Pescetarian?