Emile Sherman backs anti-factory farming campaign for Voiceless
Oscar-winning producer Emile Sherman is behind an ad campaign for Voiceless, a charity that opposes factory farmed animals.
A series of ads featuring The Matrix actor Hugo Weaving highlight the plight of animals reared in factories. The ads will run on free to air TV as community service announcements from tomorrow.
The campaign was “creatively mentored” by Sherman, who said in a press release: “We are not out to shock people with these ads. We simply want the Australian public to think about where their food comes from, and to look further into factory farming.”
Isn’t it about time ACMA tightened the definition of Community Service Announcement to stop TV stations being forced to show blatantly political ads such as this free of charge? Last year we saw the infamous “One Million Women for Climate Change” ads supporting the carbon tax, now we have this. These are political activist ads and they should have to pay to have them screened just like everybody else.
On an effectiveness level it succumbs to the same trap as anti-smoking ads and Greenpeace.
It merely preaches to the converted with a misguided superiority. Those who want to eat meat that meets the unidentified level of husbandry aren’t informed about how to identify or change the situation, nor seek a practical alternative.
Agree with poster above that this isn’t doing the Community any Service.
Enjoy the clutter between KFC etc. How any ad gets noticed or watched is beyond me unless it is Super Bowl type skin. Agree with posters that these organisations should pay their way.
I agree with the cause, but this is not going to achieve much. People need to know what they should do.
Ad Grunt – I agree. The ad’s are reaching to an audience of ‘converted’ BUT how else do you propose the public are made aware of this if not through advertising. It is ONLY the converted that go SEEKING that information in order to further quell their curiosity/ further instill their ethical decision.
HOW is this ‘political activism’ Hoin – when the victims are defenceless animals that are at the mercy of our greedy social & economic system?
HOW are these any different to the advertising showing scrawny looking Rwandan children that don’t have enough food or water?
If you don’t like it – don’t watch. The fact is – it makes you uncomfortable to know where your food comes from, hence you do not like being reminded of it.
The ONLY way this disgusting practice will ever change is through consumer power. Govt and legal authorities are ALWAYS the last to uptake laws on social epidemics… it ALWAYS starts with the individual.
Ceinwen. You don’t agree with me. I don’t think you even understand what I’m saying. Why preach to the frothing converted?
Defining political activism is kinda loose, but this sure isn’t Community Service.
It is moderately well shot, I’ll grant you and Sean Izzard has pulled a blinder as ever. But that doesn’t save the message.
The careless and ludicrous application of fact and logic across the whole site is laughable. My favourite quote – “They have no voice, cannot defend themselves and are legally classified as ‘property’.” – so what should they be defined as? Furry feeling friends? Should I be able to marry them? Can I sue them?
If the difference between animals and starving humans is lost on you, then you are one step away from PeTA and other’s misguided equivocacy between animals and humans.
Those animals wouldn’t even exist if they weren’t going to be eaten. Earth under their feet and wind in their hair is utter romantic drivel.
Pillorying the consumer without providing a reasonable assertion is moronic politicking – see PeTA, Greenpeace, The Cancer Council (Vic) and Animals Australia passim. I can’t see any vets or other actual animal welfare experts mentioned on the site?
Overall this smacks of a PeTA wannabe – I wish my dad was as rich as Ondine Sherman’s.
I agree with what they are trying to do but certainly not the way in which they are going about it. Instead of employing the ‘bleeding heart’ factor do something that helps people enact a change of behaviour. how about introducing an ethical farming certification. Ethical farming is a growing industry, particularly in Australia. Why not support the suppliers and businesses that ARE giving a real alternative to factory farmed meat? Creating a ‘poor me’ type campaign while emotive, doesn’t lead to change as it doesn’t have the guts behind it to really stand up.
Adgrunt, you make the common human mistake of supposing your intellectual intelligence as a human to make you technically superior to other life forms on the planet. Does this also make you superior to handicapped people, perhaps those with a lower iq than yours? I guess what I’m getting at is that what you are proposing is speciesism pure and simple. Do you think racism is acceptable, discriminating on the basis of skin colour? This is something that “used” to be seen as socially acceptable. The same thing is happening with discrimination towards other animals than ourselves. You say that these animals wouldn’t exist, but what sort of existence is it for them in the intolerable conditions of a factory farm? Would it not be better that they are not born into a miserable pain filled life at all? I would ask you, where does the circle of your compassion extend to? Your immediate family? Your mates?
Ad Grunt – I did agree. I said I believed the adverts were already preaching to a converted minority & should have provided alternatives- BUT my point was how else are the ‘uninformed masses’ made to be aware of these predicaments.
Ask your colleagues, friends, – Do they agree with factory farming? Do they KNOW that mother pigs are kept in gestation crates for 3 months and can barely sit down or move during this time? Do they know the difference between ‘free range’ and ‘organic’. Do they know that they fit 3 hens in battery cages the size of an A4 paper? Probably not. This is what this advertising is about in my opinon – not ‘pillorying’ of the consumer.
It’s making the public AWARE, so they can make informed decisions next time they are shopping. Awareness is the very first stage. Surely as an advertising or marketing professional you would agree with that. Your negative, ill informed logic is depressing. You could use that argument for ALL advertising – needing to point out to the consumer WHERE they can get that car, watch, house, pair of jeans etc instead of simply advertising the product for awareness & consideration in the limited 30 second space they have. ‘It’s moderately well shot’… Are you also a film director?
I agree these animals are bred and raised for food – however traditional farming methods have gone out the window and made way for factory-farming style practices that minimizes cost and maximises profit at the expense of living, breathing mammals that feel pain, discomfort, fear, maternal bonds. This is wrong. Ethically and morally. Something should be done. Just as it’s our individual responsibility to help starving children in Africa…. According to the adverts screened on television telling us so.
If my dog was treated this way I would be incendiary. So point well made as to why foodstock should be so poorly treated.
@benjamin – stop being an unmitigated tit. Animal Farm was a political allegory, not a future vision.
@ceinwen – I should be clear – Few others would condone wanton animal cruelty. However many of the assertions on the site are naive, flimsy or poorly supported.
It reminds me of the Indonesian abattoir episode which has evolved into being a cluster-fuck with far greater impacts on the climate than could be imagined at the time.
However, it is naive in the extreme to believe that agriculture should be expected to derive a greater output form diminishing resources without using factory farming. Otherwise meat will inevitably become a luxury.
It is the invalid and unsupported broad assertion that all Factory Farms are cruelty centres that grates. Surprisingly few bits of meaningful support around that key assertion I can see. It would be wise for farming to be more transparent, but that isn’t what this campaign is calling for, is it.
Benjamin, you make the common human mistake of looking at the conditions that animals live in, and thinking that because they look disgusting to you, they are disgusting to the animals. You are arrogant to presume you can understand the complex emotions of pigs and other livestock in human terms. To suggest they would rather be dead than live in a factory farm is to dismiss the rich life of the mind they enjoy, despite living in tough physical conditions.
If you looked at the way half the people on earth lived from your priviliged position you would probably think their life isn’t worth living. Of course you’d know to suggest that would be offensive, yet you are happy to offend pigs because they can’t defend themselves. Shame on you.