No Animals Were Harmed
You’ve certainly seen the “No Animals Were Harmed” disclaimers in movie credits. I wonder if we could lobby to make them truer, such that movies would have to satisfy certain vegan production criteria to qualify.
Status: rough, shallow idea.
The American Humane organization is the charity that is responsible for the “No Animals Were Harmed” certification appearing at the end of movies where animals are featured. It became active in the film industry in the 1940s, as a response to inhumane treatment of animals (e.g., a horse was forced to run off a cliff in a Western movie, and broke its spine).
This certification is probably a good thing and a step in the right direction. However, it currently also sends a message that feels wrong to me. For probably all the certified movies, hundreds of animals were eaten during their production, and lots of suffering created by all the factory farming that this implies. The certification makes it seem that there are two morally different types of animals: those who appear in movies and those who get eaten to fuel the producers.
I wonder if we, or an EA organization, or anyone, could/should do something in this space. It might be an opportunity to direct media attention toward animal wellbeing. It could also backfire, of course—I don’t have the necessary expertise to make an informed judgement here. What does the community think?
“ no animals were harmed” really means, “ no animals were being actively harmed in the footage that made it into the final cut” Ethical sourcing, retirement, housing, training etc of animal actors isn’t part of the equation,
A peta infographic about the animal cruelty in the Making pf the Hobbit films https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/animals/hobbit-unexpected-cruelty An article on the subject: https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/animal-actors-command-performances/
If you were to go down this route I would start by strengthening protections for animal actors, and then I think that dead-animals( “ meat”) used as props are more easily lumped in with animal actors , then every animal eaten by an employee during the duration of the film’s production.