PETA: Humanizing Animals, Animalizing Humans
For years, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has used actresses, reality TV stars, even porn stars to promote awareness of animal rights. They’ve been stripped down and sexed up for a variety of advertisements, including the “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign.
And for years, it’s been somewhat difficult to criticize the activist group, because after all – they’re selling sex to save lives, right?
Well, sort of. Some argue that the borderline-irrelevant relationship between sex and activism has now ventured into ridiculous territory.The latest PETA promotional teaser? An online link via Facebook that merely says, “Like Boobies?”
After clicking the link, you are redirected to a game called “Breasts, Not Animal Tests”, where the goal is to click on as many cartoon breasts as possible before your time runs up. While some view the game as a witty way to raise awareness about animal testing in breast cancer research, others find it to be a farce of exploiting the female form in the name of an animal rights agenda.
Since sex always grabs attention – though generally not in a respectable or reputable fashion – was this brand of activism born out of laziness?
This mode of marketing rests on triggering the bottom-feeding base level human sex drive, without first attempting to stimulate a higher form of communication and education. Of course, it begs the question – if the campaigns work, do the ends justify the means?
PETA’S HISTORY of EXPLOITATION IN THE NAME OF ACTIVISM
While animal rights activism is a noble cause, PETA’s slogan might as well be “Exploiting Animals, Bad. Exploiting Women, Good.” Thanks for the sentiment, but let’s not advance one group at the expense of another.
Sources:
Thanks to StilettoREVOLT reader Elizabeth Dellner for the “Breasts, Not Animal Tests” link!
“Breasts, Not Animal Tests” Peta2 Interactive Online Game
“Too Hot for TV: PETA’s Banned Ads” // PetaTV.com Official Site
Whatever they can do to grab attention is fine with me. Meat is Murder.
PETA is fooling itself if they think ads like these will make people go Veg. Guys like to look at them, and then go right on eating burgers. CHARITY FAIL.
Wow, I really don’t know what to say about this one. I mean, I hate PETA more than I hate feminist whinnying, clucking, what have you, but I like naked women, so what can I say?
The funny thing is that poor dumb Pamela Anderson (no, she’s not stupid because she is gorgeous or strips for Playboy; she’s stupid, because she’s stupid) supports PETA because she has a bunch of pet dogs and PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal. However, PETA’s official position is that pet ownership is equivalent to slavery and pet owners slave masters. So really Pam is doing propaganda for people who hate her. It would be like her doing benefits for this site to help women. I guess PETA really is taking advantage of women (at least poor Pam.)
Still, I like the naked pics, and yes roword, I think I’ll go eat a burger now
The Light is from TheLight.com everybody, a CHURCH. that explains why you’re anti-women’s-rights and why you squawk and whine on every post on this site. do you think Jesus would approve of you ogling naked women? and being compassionless to fellow human beings? Go back to your congregation, holier-than-thou fraud, you’re not wanted here.
I actually didn’t realize that thelight.com is the web site for the Church of New Berlin. See it was a joke. I gave my name as The Light and my e-mail address as thelight@thelight.com (get it funny, ha, ha). So to the Church of New Berlin, I am very sorry for this websites webmasters actions. I do not have any connection with their organization nor does anything I say reflect the views of that organization.
That having been said, on every web page, before every reply box, it asks for an e-mail address. it also says in very clear print (will not be published). I guess that’s not true. Is it? You guys are really sad and desperate.
On that note, I am done with you guys. You are so hate filled that there is no point. I’m really sorry for you.
Woo! Internet catfight! But it seems like The Light has burned out! budumche… I’ll be here all night
I’m a man who has no tolerance for sexist men, especially on a site like this. Good riddance light bulb! oh and nice joke. had me in stitches.
Not to worry, everyone maintains anonymity with their email addresses on this site. If a URL is given, the Wordpress template will create a link for that URL. That might have caused the mixup. But no email addresses are published.
Welllll, seeing as PETA is the whole point of this article, let’s not bicker among ourselves, because we’ll never meet or know eachother. When it comes to PETA, I’m grossed out by their lazy ways of drawing attention to their cause. And like some have already said, it doesn’t really work. I like the link to the Onion’s mockery of PETA on the homepage. Usually the Onion is lame or trying too hard, but I thought that one was pretty good.
I used to be a fan of PETA, though there are always crazy people, nomatter what cause it’s for… but these are silly silly ads. really useless. I also like the link on the front page about the Onion mocking PETA. not far fetched at ALL
PETA is silly. and so are blog hacks like The Light. anyway, I still became a vegetarian, and it had nothing to do with naked ladies. I saw one of those slaughterhouse videos, got sickened, and just couldn’t touch another piece of meat since. PETA should stick to the basics, it’s what really works
it grabs attention. granted peta does a lot of things that are deemed ‘crazy’ and ‘crossing the line’ and can turn people off from helping animals, but getting people’s attention about such important issues is the key and that’s what these tactics try to do. do they really think nude women will turn men veg? of course not, but it grabs their attention and may guide them to the real cause behind these pictures and then get them to help animals. who knows. and on a side note, any one who says, “ya, but i like my steak,” really has no clue.
Abortion protesters use the most atrocious photos they can find. Their goal is to show the horrors of abortion. Not that I agree. If they used posters of scantily-clad supermodels with captions stating their cause, they would get the same response from men that PETA gets from their campaign. There is a grain of truth in the idiom “there is no such thing as bad publicity”. But I can’t imagine for a second that the publicity they get is converted into results. I don’t know who the agency behind the campaign is, but I’d want to see some proof that impressions convert into actions. (I’m scared what actions PETA’s campaigns generate!)