There’s a poem by Wendy Cope I absolutely love, called “Kindness to Animals”. She says that if she became a vegetarian and stopped eating lamb, she’d be both a better person — and thinner. It concludes:
But the lamb is not endangered
And at least I can truthfully say
I have never, ever eaten a barn owl,
So perhaps I am OK.
Well, nothing makes me want to eat a barn owl more than PETA, the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals. Flushed with the storming success of their “we’d rather go naked than wear fur” supermodel billboard (it turned out Naomi Campbell wouldn’t, by the way, as she has modelled fur several times since), they decided years ago that nakedness was the key to ending animal cruelty. If you don’t believe me, and you’re not at work, have a Google.
They even have a whole page, Veggie Love, dedicated to boasting about how their recent adverts were “too hot” (read: too lazily objectifying) for television, with one banned from the Superbowl slot for featuring a woman “rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin”.
Further down the page, they trill: “‘Veggie Love’ isn’t the first PETA video banned from the airwaves. Check out our other videos that have been deemed “too hot for TV”!” Because you know what’s definitely proven to stop people being cruel to animals? Masturbation, that’s what!
So far, so “sex sells innit and our advertising agency is lazy”. But one of PETA’s key messages — that vegetarians make better lovers — has taken a disturbing new twist with their latest campaign.
“This is Jessica,” begins the video, over footage of a woman in a neck brace shuffling painfully down the street. “She suffers from WVAKTBOOM – 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.”
Er, what? At this point I watched the video again. Was it really tossing around domestic violence imagery in an effort to persuade me to give up eggs and milk? Apparently so. Men who go vegan will become such sexual adepts that they will injure their partners.
As if that wasn’t offensive — and unpersuasive — enough the advert has more. The way Jessica is shot is consistently sexualised. There’s a lovely frame of her bum walking up some steps, painfully, and ohwouldyoulookatthat she’s forgotten to put her skirt on. In she wanders to see her sex panther of a boyfriend, who looks deceptively pale and weedy, and she’s in her bra and pants. Because what’s better than casually using images of violence against women? SEXY images of violence against women!
As a journalist, I’m reluctant to blog about adverts like this, because they are the corporate version of trolling — if you draw attention to them, you’re doing their publicity work for them.
But unlike say, the Ryanair advert banned this week for objectifying its staff, this PETA advert doesn’t in the slightest make me want to go vegan. In fact, quite the opposite. So not only will I happily call them out, but I’m going to smother myself in foie gras and panda steaks.
Hat-tip to @rosamundurwin for pointing out the advert. Follow me on Twitter: @helenlewis
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