Tuesday, June 12, 2012

New ad equates eating fish with granny bashing

Anti-violence campaigners have slammed an animal rights advertisement that equates eating fish with the suffering of sexual assault and domestic abuse victims. The video, made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, shows a screaming girl watching a man beat her mother, an attacker grabbing an elderly woman's blouse, and a bloodied schoolboy being kicked to the ground. It then shows a fish on a chopping board, opening its mouth, with the words: ''Some screams can't be heard.''



PETA is also urging supporters to tweet celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Mario Batali, calling on them to ''put down the knife''. Previously, the group has defended its attempts to ''shake people up'' as a means of sparking debate. Virginia Geddes, executive officer of the Victorian Domestic Violence Resource Centre, said she was ''horrified'' by the ad. ''I'm appalled that the lives of victims of violence are being compared to the life of a fish,'' she said. ''When PETA talks about 'shaking people up', have they thought about what being shaken up actually feels like for the women and children being abused?''

Karen Willis, executive officer of the New South Wales Rape Crisis Centre, said: ''To throw this in somebody's face without any warning is quite unethical. It re-traumatises them, and no one has the right to do that.'' Ms Willis said PETA ''has its heart in the right place'', but she feels the violent footage renders the ad ineffective. ''When I think of that ad, all I'll remember is the girl screaming and the woman being robbed, not the fish on the chopping block,'' she said.


YouTube link.

Media commentator Professor Catharine Lumby said she endorsed PETA's motives but not its method. ''Animal rights is very important,'' she said. ''But I am concerned about the use of violence against women and children being used as bait for political campaigns.'' Claire Fryer, of PETA, defended the campaign as ''an effort to instil empathy for animals, specifically fish, who are widely misunderstood. Billions of fish are dragged suffocating from the oceans or farmed in filthy, severely crowded fish farms, treated in ways that would warrant cruelty-to-animals charges if the victims were dogs or cats.''

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

no surprise its peta....

Elena said...

I wonder what they would do if I tell them plants have life too; Plants have it even harder cos they don't even have a mouth to express their pain.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if PETA activists scream when you cut them up with a knife? Let's find out, shall we?

Anonymous said...

I am not against eating fish - but if they could scream no one would fish

Williamrocket said...

From an outside point of veiw, and I mean off planet, we would all appear to be "earthlings".... many species sharing the same piece of rock, all calling it home.
But one species, the arrogant humans, think they are the overlords, with some of those humans even indulging in the fantasy that a superior being gave them the right to kill, torture, murder, the other species.
If this was a movie, made "off planet", we humans would be the baddies, raping the earth, murdering the other earthlings (ha, animals AND other humans). And if I was watching this movie, I would be rooting for the good guys.
Pigs ?, my pigs are smarter than my dog, not only do they wake me up for breakfast, they also open the back door to let the dog out, every morning.
Me eat bacon ? I would rather eat you.

Anonymous said...

Make fun of PETA if you want, but if fish could scream like most other animals, most people would stop fishing.
....not convinced yet? How about if people were allowed to set bait traps for deer with large hooks hidden in the bait and when the deer 'hit' on the bait you could reel them in with winches as they fought for their lives? ...then suffocate them, as fish do. Think about it.

Anonymous said...

The reason people don't do that is because it would be a dumbass way to hunt deer, just like how when people go fishing they don't use rifles to shoot fish. Has nothing to do with whether or not an animal screams.

Jeff said...

PETA kills more animals than they save, advocates and supports violence, murder and terrorism in the name of "animal rights," and are founded & led by an absolute lying hypocrite. A truly great organization, PETA is.

e said...

williamrocket -
your are just borrowing your idea from 'the day the earth stood still', i would recommend maybe expanding your movie collection, since thats a silly film to base your worldview on :p