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Animal-friendly plotlines
The welfare of animals ? be they dogs, fish or chimps ? is a subplot in three wildly different movies this summer.
The welfare of animals — be they dogs, fish or chimps — is a subplot in three wildly different movies this summer, and animal rights organisations are happy as clams about it.
In Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Reese Witherspoon as the ditsy but brainy lawyer Elle Woods, fights to stop cosmetic companies from using dogs as test subjects for their products.
Horror flick 28 Days Later features radical animal activists freeing chimps that are used for experimentation. The animals, which are infected with a deadly virus that induces murderous rage, promptly kill the humans who helped them, spreading the virus.
In Finding Nemo, a bratty little girl repeatedly mistreats her pet fish. When Nemo, a lost clown fish, is set to be her next victim, the tropical fish in the aquarium band together to escape. Animal rights advocates are pleased to see popular media grapple with these questions.
“We’re thrilled when movies come out that are geared to entertain and educate the public about animal welfare, especially children’s movies, because it’s important to educate children about animal welfare early,” says Ruth Goldstein of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
“There are some incredibly responsible messages here veiled in entertainment,” says Karen Rosa, director of the film and TV unit of American Humane Society. “Legally Blonde 2 is a great comedy embracing a real issue.”
Legally Blonde 2 screenwriter Kate Kondell says she was happy to embrace the issue, given her work training guide dogs and a previous job with the Humane Society.
“Reese has three dogs and is a vegetarian, so I know she’s very interested in animals,” Kondell says. “We were trying to find an issue that she could get emotionally involved in.”
Combine that with Elle’s love of makeup, and the match was made. “When you take a character that girls are already sort of fond of and you can sneak in some message, that’s a rare opportunity,” Kondell says. “It’s like that spoonful-of-sugar approach.”
28 Days Later only briefly shows the caged chimps, but in this case animal activists are inadvertent villains, because freeing the chimps spreads the virus.
Most mainstream animal-welfare advocates don’t condone such extreme behaviour. “It’s almost like people taking the law into their own hands, taking an anarchistic, terroristic perspective.We don’t believe animals should be used in research with invasive processes. There are ways of legislating and advocating change. ” And in real-world concerns, the misguided Nemo fans hellbent on freeing their fish are a minority.
“We’ve been trying to educate that taking on a pet is a big responsibility and people have to take it seriously,” Rosa says. “But for the most part, Nemo’s message is very positive.” Even animated dogs get their due in Hollywood. In The Hulk, the title character tosses crazed dogs around a room, killing them, but that was achieved through computer-generated imagery.
