The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Bloody Condemnation of the Meat Industry

 Last week our class delved into the disturbing nature of the American meat industry. While going through our discussions and watching Okja, I kept finding myself thinking about Carol J. Adam’s article and her “absent referents,” the women and the animals. When animals (or, more broadly, nature) suffer we compare their experience to that of a woman being raped, and when women feel they are dehumanized they compare themselves to lifeless animal flesh. Adams suggests that this process of referencing one without explicitly naming the other is often done without much thought being given to either the animals or the women. I couldn’t help but think of a horror film that I believe does just this, but with visceral purpose: 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Directed by Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at face-value appears to be nothing more than your average slasher flick, with a chainsaw-wielding maniac and his unhinged family terrorizing a group of hapless young people, but if one views this film through a socially conscious lens, one will find that this film has something to say about several issues, with animal food processing in particular being the most timeless of them. There are numerous analyses and articles about the film and its many themes on the Internet (to view one of my favorites that doesn't have to do with food you can see it here), but for this blog I’m going to focus entirely on how the victims of Leatherface (the film’s most memorable villain) are used to viscerally reference the death of livestock in slaughterhouses.

          At the beginning of the film, one is not certain what this film is trying to say because the viewer may be distracted by the immediate assault of disturbing images on their eyes: pictures of decomposing human body parts, fingers, feet, a face, teeth, it’s unsettling to say the least. We are then treated to the macabre sight of a decomposing human body tied and manipulated to sit upright on a tombstone in a strange pose. Death; fleshy, rotting, and probably stinky is viscerally presented to the viewer just seconds into the film. The next image we are treated to is that of a dead armadillo lying on the street belly-up and rotting in the sun. One of the crew on the film during production would go out and collect real dead and decomposing animals and animal parts to strew about the set, and this is just one example of many more to come throughout the rest of the film, often accompanied by uncomfortable and jarring music. Somebody clearly doesn’t want the viewer associating meat and flesh with happy times.

              But the food social commentary doesn’t really pick up until our five victims, Kirk, Pam, Jerry, Sally, and Sally’s handicapped, wheelchair-bound brother Franklin, pass an old slaughterhouse in their van. The group, prior to even passing it, points out the rancid smell of the slaughterhouse. Franklin immediately starts to describe the process of butchering cattle in grim and brutal detail, prompting Pam, the vegetarian of the group, to state that animals should not be killed for food. Upon hearing Pam’s protest, Franklin states that it’s much better for the cows now because of the air gun (or knocker as we know them from Dr. Emmerman and Okja) used to put the cattle down instead of the original sledgehammer. This causes Sally to tell Franklin to stop as she still eats meat. As the uncomfortable discussion progresses we are treated to close-up shots of the slaughterhouse’s cattle, panting and drooling in their crowded pens presumably waiting for slaughter. Immediately after passing the slaughterhouse the group picks up a strange hitchhiker, who we see later become one of the central antagonists. But before we learn this it’s made pretty clear that something is not quite right about this hitchhiker. Franklin initiates a conversation with the hitchhiker about the slaughterhouse they just passed, and it is during this conversation that the hitchhiker’s language and behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He expresses frustration at the implementation of an air gun rather than a sledgehammer, as the air gun, in his words, both put people out of the job and robbed the cattle of a good death. He describes in graphic detail the process of making headcheese, and even shares pictures of slaughtered beef with the young people. He is finally kicked out of the group’s van after he takes a picture of Franklin with his Polaroid camera, burns the picture, and cuts Franklin with his switchblade. Boy, if you can still like headcheese after hearing all that you must be some kind of lunatic, right?

            The passing of the slaughterhouse and the encounter with the deranged hitchhiker heralds the beginning of a living nightmare for the five young people. One by one Leatherface dispatches them in brutal ways. The most memorable and unsettling of the deaths by far (in my opinion) is that of Pam. Prior to death, Pam stumbles into a room strewn with bones, some animal and some human, and feathers. Some of the bones have been organized into strange formations and poses, similar to the body we saw mere seconds into the film. The sight causes her to become sick (she’s a vegetarian after all) but before she can run out of the house she is pulled back in by Leatherface and impaled alive on a meat hook, with a bucket below her to catch her blood. She is forced to watch while suspended in midair by the meat hook as Leatherface butchers her boyfriend’s body with a chainsaw. It’s interesting to note that the process of killing in this film, even in this demented scene, is fairly bloodless. The budget didn’t allow for excessive gore, but what we see is still nonetheless haunting due to Pam’s whimpering and her horrified expression. It’s also interesting to point out that save for one, all the deaths appear in broad daylight, perhaps a metaphor for the way that livestock are killed in broad daylight in slaughterhouses, but this is just a theory.

But one cannot talk about this film and it’s association with meat without referencing the infamous dinner scene. It is arguably this deranged and unsettling dinner scene that hammers home this film’s anti-meat message the most aggressively. Sally, tied and gagged by a previously-thought-to-be-nice gas station worker, is brought to the same house in which Kirk, Pam, and Jerry met their demises. Here she is tied to a chair and forced to sit at a table set with plates bedecked with meat and the tiniest bit of mashed potatoes. When Sally screams, Leatherface and the hitchhiker howl back at her. They poke and prod her and lean in uncomfortably close to her face while the sound of a squealing pig is heard in the background. The gas station worker objects to the two torturing the girl. Sally begs the gas station worker to make the two stop, but the hitchhiker then states that the gas station worker can’t do anything because he’s just the cook, and doesn’t have the stomach for killing. The station worker objects to the hitchhiker’s claim, but then states, “I just can’t take no pleasure in killing. There’s just some things you gotta do. Don’t mean you have to like it.” It’s clear throughout this scene that while the station worker is okay with Sally being killed (and it’s strongly suggested that she’s being killed for food), he is not okay with Sally being tortured beforehand. However, he contradicts himself constantly. He fights back smiles and even laughs a bit while Sally is screaming and crying, as if he’s fighting back his own baser instinct to mock his prey. I wonder if the director meant for this character to represent the average American meat-consumer? Hooper may be saying that meat-eaters, even if they object to the torture, are still complacent and therefore somewhat responsible for it because they still eat meat.

           I believe that what Tobe Hooper was attempting to do with this film is foster sympathy for the plight of farmed animals by forcing the viewers to watch young people undergo the same sort of torture and degradation that farmed animals go through on a regular basis, while still having animals present in the periphery. Whether this is an efficient way is up for debate, but in my opinion at least in response to this film, the proof is in the pudding... blood pudding. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t known as much for its stance against animal cruelty as it is known for its memorable villain, Leatherface. The sequels and spinoffs would drop any semblance of social commentary to focus entirely on Leatherface, the most marketable part of the film. And even if Hooper’s intention was to foster sympathy for the plight of animals in factory farms, I wasn’t thinking about how bad animals have it in slaughterhouses when Pam was getting killed, I was thinking about how bad the character Pam had it in that moment. The fact that she was scantily clad and, in my humble opinion, attractive only further went to foster my empathy for her and not the animal she was supposed to represent. The same went for Sally. I just wanted her to make it out alive. So while the film may achieve its goal of fostering repulsion towards flesh and meat in the moment, thanks in large part due to its macabre imagery and its association of meat with horrid behavior, the film’s long-term effect is arguably much less efficient. But this begs the question: Are movies (not documentaries) worth being used as a tool against animal cruelty in food production, or are they not? And for all you horror fans out there, I strongly recommend watching this film. If you don’t find it scary you’ll at least find it strange and unsettling. And if you're on the fence about watching this film, here's an article by Oregon ArtsWatch arguing why the film is a horror masterpiece even by today's standards. And if you're not interested in watching the film, here's a trailer that spoils a lot of scenes. 

Word count: 1,698 

Question: Are movies (not documentaries) valuable tools to shed light on the cruelty present in the meat industry or are they not? Explain.

Personally, I don’t believe movies are a good way to try to fight animal cruelty because (1) many people around the world regard films as fantasies, and just from the fact that films are projected onto big screens in front of them causes people to be alienated from the reality of what is presented to them, and (2) the need to eat may trump any sort of sympathy we have for animals that we see butchered inhumanely on screen, especially if the viewer is already accustomed to eating meat on a regular basis. That is a very tough habit to break, especially if meat is easy to procure and easy to cook. And when a film attempts to do so by substituting animals with people, most likely the audiences will only feel empathy for people rather than sympathy for animals, similar to my own experience with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And while I feel that a film like Okja is very well done and does promote some genuine discussion and thought, the film ultimately will fail at converting a substantial amount of people to vegetarianism and veganism because the super pigs themselves aren’t real and people recognize that. Many people will recognize that super pigs are smarter than real cows, pigs, and other livestock, and will understand that they are being emotionally manipulated. As YouTube film critic Ralph Sepe so eloquently states about Okja, “…immediately after I saw the movie I ate a burger and a steak and a piece of chicken, I didn’t give a shit.”