The organization, Friends of Animals, was given an opportunity to promote an anti-fur message in Times Square this holiday season, to reach millions of people and encourage them to make kind choices when seeking to keep warm this winter so that animals are not harmed. Yet instead of appealing to what is best in humanity, instead of talking to people heart to heart, instead of taking advantage of the genuine love and concern for animals among the American public and encouraging thoughtful deliberation, Friends of Animals turned a beautiful, little animal into themselves: misanthropes who flip off the very people they need to appeal to in order to engage them into making compassionate choices. I can think of a hundred more effective ways to spread the message this holiday season that fur is cruel than a fabricated image of a fox making an obscene gesture that parents will struggle to explain to their confused young children. Here’s a couple of quick sketches we came up with, sketches that reject the terrible precedent set by PETA that confuses effective animal advocacy with mindless shock value which alienates rather than wins the embrace of the public. Imagine a billboard designed to encourage support for another cause embracing similar methods—imagine a hundred foot war refugee, an imprisoned political activist or an Ebola victim flipping off Times Square shoppers. Would the UN Refugee Agency, Amnesty International or Doctors Without Borders treat the intended beneficiaries of their efforts with such disrespect? Would they take their responsibilities to represent their plight so cavalierly? If the animal rights movement ever hopes to overcome the double standard between humans and non-humans that is at the core of so much mistreatment, it can be much more effective by ridding itself of this same troubling mindset. Photos: (1) Friends of Animals wastes an opportunity to effectively advocate for animals by embracing misanthropic PETA tactics (2) Ways to advocate that touch the heart and motivate rather than offend.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 19:09:48 +0000
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