Biro: Chicken Run- The Prison-Like Lives of Livestock
Chicken Run
The Prison-Like Lives of Livestock
By Sami Biro
By Sami Biro
Introduction:
Do dogs deserve the rights humans receive? Do fish or chickens? We humans seem to see our rights as the most valuable ones, and anything that is not human does not get the same rights. If I'm honest, not even all people receive the same rights. Livestock and other farmed animals are treated horrendously in the food industry. From mutilation to force feeding animals until they die from overeating, the atrocities committed in the food industry are overlooked by lay people. If we were to see humans treated in the same way, there would be a great deal more uproar. When it comes to the rights of farm animals, there are two main schools of thought surrounding the discussion- the rights view and utilitarianism. The rights view is often called an "abolitionist" view since it aims to stop all slaughtering of animals for food. They argue that animals have rights, and that it is inherently wrong to violate the rights of a being with rights. Abolitionists want all of the cages to be emptied. On the other hand, utilitarianism does not argue that slaughtering animals is wrong. Rather, it argues that the way we treat the animals needs to change. If pleasure is increased and pain minimized, if the animals can live in appropriate conditions with little to no stress or suffering, then farming animals could continue. Welfarists want bigger cages, not empty ones.
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| The chickens of Chicken Run escaping their prison-like chicken coop. Image found online. |
What's Going On in Chicken Run?
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| The owners of the chickens in Chicken Run analyzing the chickens and deciding which one to slaughter next. Image found on Blogger. |
In Chicken Run, we are introduced to a rooster named Rocky and a hen named Ginger. They live with a a bunch of other chickens in an egg farm. The chickens are treated horribly, and their living conditions resemble prison camps from World War II. If a chicken does not produce enough eggs, they are slaughtered. The owners are no longer able to keep up with the market and decide to turn their egg farm into a chicken pot pie production site. Things were already bad enough for the chickens in the farm, but the chickens in the movie are as sentient as humans and quickly learn that their destiny is now to become food. By the end of the movie, the chickens escape (and presumably kill their owner). Then, the chickens all live happily ever after on a quiet island.
Sentient Chickens Force Us to Empathize:
When thinking about the chickens in the movie, I often wonder, how much of that was true? Sure, chickens can't talk and don't wear clothes, but they do communicate with each other (to some extent) and they do feel terror and pain. Though chickens cannot tell us how they feel, personifying chickens for a movie makes us empathize with them a little more. They may not be human, but we put ourselves in their chicken-sized shoes and realize that we would do the same thing. We would try to escape. We would see that treatment as inhumane and even evil. Chickens may not have the words "inhumane" and "evil" in their vocabulary, but that doesn't mean they are oblivious to their own suffering. Since chickens cannot communicate their suffering to us, it is our job to empathize with them and decide whether we will treat them the same way we would want to be treated. "Do unto others and you would have others do unto you," or whatever the phrase is.
When thinking about the chickens in the movie, I often wonder, how much of that was true? Sure, chickens can't talk and don't wear clothes, but they do communicate with each other (to some extent) and they do feel terror and pain. Though chickens cannot tell us how they feel, personifying chickens for a movie makes us empathize with them a little more. They may not be human, but we put ourselves in their chicken-sized shoes and realize that we would do the same thing. We would try to escape. We would see that treatment as inhumane and even evil. Chickens may not have the words "inhumane" and "evil" in their vocabulary, but that doesn't mean they are oblivious to their own suffering. Since chickens cannot communicate their suffering to us, it is our job to empathize with them and decide whether we will treat them the same way we would want to be treated. "Do unto others and you would have others do unto you," or whatever the phrase is.
Prison or a Chicken Coop?
We have experienced two world wars and countless other wars in the history of mankind, and in these wars, we have seen the worst sides of humanity. Treatment of prisoners of war, treatment of the Jews and Japanese Americans during World War II, treatment of Palestinians today, and plenty of other examples show us just how cruel we are to other humans. At the same time, we are outraged by these cruelties. Sometimes, the perpetrators are convicted with war crimes afterwards, and justice can be found to some extent. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights aims to protect people from injustices, and in some way, shape, or form, we all have the right to live. Countries have been known to go to war over the rights of their people and other peoples. The same, however, cannot be said for animals. I do not mean to minimize the suffering of humans by saying this, merely I mean to show that animals are mutilated and tortured as well, but they receive no justice or reparations.
Not all animals have rights, and there sure isn't a universal declaration of which rights belong to which animals. In the United States, we have the Animal Welfare Act, but it does not apply to farmed animals- only to pets and other animals that we think deserve these rights. This is why I think movies like Chicken Run are important. We are traumatized by the treatment of humans that we have seen over the years, yet knowing that animals live in some of those same situations does not bother us nearly as much. By personifying the chickens and giving them sentience, suddenly their chicken coop changes into a prison camp, and the innocent chicken farmers transform into evil, hateful people. Suddenly, the chickens' desire to escape isn't so bizarre, but their treatment is seen as appalling. This ties back into how anthropocentric we can be. The chickens didn't matter to us until we could understand them- until they had sentience.
The movie Chicken Run takes it a step further by intentionally tying the chickens in to Europeans during World War II. The chickens in the movie are made to seem like people from the 40's and 50's, which as we all know is the time period of World War II. Their conditions closely mirror prison camps from that era, and we find ourselves rooting for the chickens who we were fine with eating for lunch that day. The website Prison Movies ties the movie even more to World War II when they use Rocky to represent the U.S. and the chickens in the coop are made to represent Europeans: "Rocky redeems himself by returning to save the smitten Ginger from a doughy demise in the pie-maker - a late but timely intervention that might just mirror the US involvement in WWII." And so the movie shows us exactly how we would react if we were to live the lives that chickens and other livestock do. We in the U.S. would join a world war if we had to, as we did in World War II. With this in mind, maybe, just maybe, we should begin to consider the rights of farmed animals.
Abolitionist, Welfarist, or Anthropocentric- What is Chicken Run?
I started this blog post off by describing the abolitionist view and the welfarist view, and now I would like to explore how those two views play out in the movie Chicken Run. There are a few different routes one could take when looking into the movie, so first I will explore this thought from the perspective of the chickens. They are obviously terrified by the end and want to escape, which would seem to demonstrate a more abolitionist viewpoint. That being said, it isn't until Ginger convinces everyone to escape that they really decide they deserve better. Some of the chickens honestly are content with their life, which leans a bit more toward the welfarist point of view. If we could change their enclosures from prison-like pens to something more humane, they would be happy with their lives.
Now, I will look into the symbolism to find whether the movie is more abolitionist or welfarist. The main symbolism is that the chickens represent the victims of prison camps during World War II- Jews, Eastern Europeans, Japanese Americans. The amount of outrage and heartbreak felt around the world during World War II is felt once again when watching Chicken Run. From the barbed-wire fences to the strict and inhumane treatment of the chickens, we instantly feel for them and want them freed. If we want personified chickens to have rights and freedom, then maybe we should want that for chickens who cannot speak for themselves. During World War II, we would not have been content with giving the Jews more space and a slightly more human living- we wanted them set free. By connecting the chickens to the victims of World War II, the movie becomes inherently abolitionist.
At the same time, the creators of the movie, as well as viewers, know that chickens cannot think and speak in the same way that the chickens in Chicken Run do. We know that not all chicken farmers are as evil and cruel as the Tweedy's. We know that this movie was in some way a satire, and that the creators really intended to tie the chickens to human issues, rather than tie humans to the suffering of animals. As one review of the movie says, "Like the otherwise completely different "Babe," this is a movie that uses animals as surrogates for our hopes and fears..." Chickens were given personalities that we can empathize with, rather than humans turned into chickens with no sentience, so it shows that these chickens were really used as just a creative tool to make a prison-break movie that is exciting, comical, and speaks to the injustices of World War II. The movie was not intended as a statement about animal rights.
In fact, the movie capitalizes on animal suffering to make a statement about human rights. Carol Adams described this in her piece, "The Rape of Animals, the Butchering of Women" as the "absent referent." Animals that become food are absent, but still referred to... as "meat." They are no longer animals, they are veal, beef, hot wings, or whatever other names we give to their dead bodies. In Adams' piece, she says that women often become absent referents for the conditions of animals, and vice versa. When feminists describe women who are sexually assaulted, they often say things like "men treat us like meat." By saying this, they are saying that women are treated as badly as meat without actually discussing the suffering of the animals. They capitalize on the suffering of animals to make a statement about human rights. This also happens in the movie Chicken Run when the harsh conditions the chickens live in and their mistreatment is compared to prison camps. If the comparison went more like "chickens live in prison camps, and this kind of treatment for any living being is immoral," then the chickens wouldn't be absent in the metaphor. Unfortunately, the creators of the movie were thinking something more along the lines of: "chickens live in prison camps, so lets personify these chickens and use their setting as an easier way to discuss World War II."
The intent may have been human-centered, but for some people, this movie had an impact relating more to the treatment of animals, rather than the treatment of humans. Just because this movie was focused more on human issues, using the chickens as catalysts, does not mean we cannot learn a thing or two about how to treat animals in the food industry. Ten billion animals are slaughtered for food each year in the U.S. alone. Nine billion of these animals are chickens. These numbers don't even include the chickens that are turned into fertilizer or discarded because they are not "perfect." Looking at the image to the right, many people wouldn't even bat an eye. "That's just the way it is," they might say. If we can learn to empathize with animals who cannot speak for themselves in the way we empathize with mentally disabled humans or children, we wouldn't just see thousands of mindless animals living in bad conditions, we would see thousands of living beings who are being treated horribly and deserve better.
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| This image, found at PrisonMovies.Net, shows how prison-like the chickens' coop was. |
Not all animals have rights, and there sure isn't a universal declaration of which rights belong to which animals. In the United States, we have the Animal Welfare Act, but it does not apply to farmed animals- only to pets and other animals that we think deserve these rights. This is why I think movies like Chicken Run are important. We are traumatized by the treatment of humans that we have seen over the years, yet knowing that animals live in some of those same situations does not bother us nearly as much. By personifying the chickens and giving them sentience, suddenly their chicken coop changes into a prison camp, and the innocent chicken farmers transform into evil, hateful people. Suddenly, the chickens' desire to escape isn't so bizarre, but their treatment is seen as appalling. This ties back into how anthropocentric we can be. The chickens didn't matter to us until we could understand them- until they had sentience.
The movie Chicken Run takes it a step further by intentionally tying the chickens in to Europeans during World War II. The chickens in the movie are made to seem like people from the 40's and 50's, which as we all know is the time period of World War II. Their conditions closely mirror prison camps from that era, and we find ourselves rooting for the chickens who we were fine with eating for lunch that day. The website Prison Movies ties the movie even more to World War II when they use Rocky to represent the U.S. and the chickens in the coop are made to represent Europeans: "Rocky redeems himself by returning to save the smitten Ginger from a doughy demise in the pie-maker - a late but timely intervention that might just mirror the US involvement in WWII." And so the movie shows us exactly how we would react if we were to live the lives that chickens and other livestock do. We in the U.S. would join a world war if we had to, as we did in World War II. With this in mind, maybe, just maybe, we should begin to consider the rights of farmed animals.
Abolitionist, Welfarist, or Anthropocentric- What is Chicken Run?
I started this blog post off by describing the abolitionist view and the welfarist view, and now I would like to explore how those two views play out in the movie Chicken Run. There are a few different routes one could take when looking into the movie, so first I will explore this thought from the perspective of the chickens. They are obviously terrified by the end and want to escape, which would seem to demonstrate a more abolitionist viewpoint. That being said, it isn't until Ginger convinces everyone to escape that they really decide they deserve better. Some of the chickens honestly are content with their life, which leans a bit more toward the welfarist point of view. If we could change their enclosures from prison-like pens to something more humane, they would be happy with their lives.
Now, I will look into the symbolism to find whether the movie is more abolitionist or welfarist. The main symbolism is that the chickens represent the victims of prison camps during World War II- Jews, Eastern Europeans, Japanese Americans. The amount of outrage and heartbreak felt around the world during World War II is felt once again when watching Chicken Run. From the barbed-wire fences to the strict and inhumane treatment of the chickens, we instantly feel for them and want them freed. If we want personified chickens to have rights and freedom, then maybe we should want that for chickens who cannot speak for themselves. During World War II, we would not have been content with giving the Jews more space and a slightly more human living- we wanted them set free. By connecting the chickens to the victims of World War II, the movie becomes inherently abolitionist.
At the same time, the creators of the movie, as well as viewers, know that chickens cannot think and speak in the same way that the chickens in Chicken Run do. We know that not all chicken farmers are as evil and cruel as the Tweedy's. We know that this movie was in some way a satire, and that the creators really intended to tie the chickens to human issues, rather than tie humans to the suffering of animals. As one review of the movie says, "Like the otherwise completely different "Babe," this is a movie that uses animals as surrogates for our hopes and fears..." Chickens were given personalities that we can empathize with, rather than humans turned into chickens with no sentience, so it shows that these chickens were really used as just a creative tool to make a prison-break movie that is exciting, comical, and speaks to the injustices of World War II. The movie was not intended as a statement about animal rights.
In fact, the movie capitalizes on animal suffering to make a statement about human rights. Carol Adams described this in her piece, "The Rape of Animals, the Butchering of Women" as the "absent referent." Animals that become food are absent, but still referred to... as "meat." They are no longer animals, they are veal, beef, hot wings, or whatever other names we give to their dead bodies. In Adams' piece, she says that women often become absent referents for the conditions of animals, and vice versa. When feminists describe women who are sexually assaulted, they often say things like "men treat us like meat." By saying this, they are saying that women are treated as badly as meat without actually discussing the suffering of the animals. They capitalize on the suffering of animals to make a statement about human rights. This also happens in the movie Chicken Run when the harsh conditions the chickens live in and their mistreatment is compared to prison camps. If the comparison went more like "chickens live in prison camps, and this kind of treatment for any living being is immoral," then the chickens wouldn't be absent in the metaphor. Unfortunately, the creators of the movie were thinking something more along the lines of: "chickens live in prison camps, so lets personify these chickens and use their setting as an easier way to discuss World War II."
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| This image found online shows how cramped and full chicken coops can be. |
The intent may have been human-centered, but for some people, this movie had an impact relating more to the treatment of animals, rather than the treatment of humans. Just because this movie was focused more on human issues, using the chickens as catalysts, does not mean we cannot learn a thing or two about how to treat animals in the food industry. Ten billion animals are slaughtered for food each year in the U.S. alone. Nine billion of these animals are chickens. These numbers don't even include the chickens that are turned into fertilizer or discarded because they are not "perfect." Looking at the image to the right, many people wouldn't even bat an eye. "That's just the way it is," they might say. If we can learn to empathize with animals who cannot speak for themselves in the way we empathize with mentally disabled humans or children, we wouldn't just see thousands of mindless animals living in bad conditions, we would see thousands of living beings who are being treated horribly and deserve better.
If movies like Chicken Run that use the mistreatment of animals as a way to showcase human experiences could also adequately display the suffering of the animals and could somehow magically solve both the human issues and the animal issues presented, then this would be a different discussion. For now, we consumers need to be more alert as we watch these kinds of movies. The commentary of human rights violations is great, and I do not mean to devalue the movie's discussion of World War II, but by using animals to show human issues, they are devaluing the discussion of animal suffering. Consumers need to be aware of the multiple layers present in sentient animal movies. Then, movies like Chicken Run can begin to shed some light on the food industry as well as human rights violations.
Word Count: 2394
Word Count: 2394
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