That “No Animals Were Harmed” Movie Credit Is Meaningless
Photo by Chris Brunskill/Getty Images
The Hollywood Reporter has a long, stunning investigative article out today called “Animals Were Harmed.” THR journalist
Gary Baum presents compelling evidence that the American Humane
Association, the nonprofit organization charged with monitoring film and
TV productions for animal abuse, has systematically hidden animal
deaths in the interest of preserving friendly relations with powerful
Hollywood producers.
The deaths of three horses on the set of HBO’s horse racing series Luck—which was overseen by the AHA—are well known (and probably contributed to Luck’s cancellation), but the stomach-turning incidents go far beyond Luck: There’s the dog that was punched by its trainer on the set of Eight Below, the chipmunk that was dropped and stepped on by its handler during the filming of Failure to Launch, and the dozens of sheep and goats that died during a hiatus in the filming of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
The AHA, which receives most of its funding from industry groups,
excused these and other incidents by saying that they were
unintentional, or that because they happened off-camera, they don’t
count. Most of Baum’s sources are anonymous, but there are a few
jaw-droppingly wrongheaded quotes, like this one:
In an interview with THR, Candy Spelling, a national AHA board member, defends the organization’s intent behind the “No Animals Were Harmed” end credit. “I think what people think [it means] is that when a horse dies in the movies, it didn’t really die,” she says. “I think that people think [the AHA’s monitoring] is just when the cameras are rolling.”
Right. No one cares if you punch, step on, or starve animals as long
as there’s no camera turned on nearby. If that’s the best defense the
AHA can come up with, I hope the Department of Agriculture, the
governmental agency usually tasked with protecting animals from neglect
and abuse, begins sending agents to Hollywood very, very soon. Baum’s
article is the kind of public interest journalism that ought to result
in policy changes, and the entire thing is worth reading.
Of course, while the AHA’s hypocrisy is sickening, there is another,
bigger hypocrisy in play. As my colleague Forrest Wickman wrote after the death of Luck’s horses became known,
“What makes the suffering of animals in the service of making
television so much worse than the suffering of animals in the service of
making steak or scrambled eggs?” The USDA is responsible for enforcing
the Animal Welfare Act, which applies to “certain animals bred for
commercial sale, used in research, transported commercially or exhibited
to the public” but “excludes those animals raised for food or fiber.”
Animals in the latter group are generally treated far worse than animals
in Hollywood films, and the USDA condones nightmarish conditions on
factory farms. Granted, the USDA’s jurisdiction merely reflects popular
beliefs: that some animals (like dogs, horses, and chipmunks) are our
friends, while others (like pigs, cattle, and chickens) are not. The Hollywood Reporter has uncovered a major scandal. Perhaps someday the abuse of livestock will be considered a scandal, too.
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