Animal Actors:
Command Performances FE AT U R E
inappropriate portrayal of chimpanzees in media is
likely to hinder conservation efforts and distort the
public’s perception of endangered animals.
Human fascination with wild and exotic animals
unfortunately makes them popular subjects for
advertisers and the film and TV industry. Only human stars can be sure of securing a retirement
after a career in movies.
Performing elephants and “smiling” chimpanzees
may grab our attention, but these animals are not
willing participants in the entertainment industry.
Wild animals have extremely specialised needs. For
example, elephants, big cats and bears are roaming
animals who require a vast amount of space in which
to explore and exercise. When used for
entertainment, these animals are subjected to intense
confinement and deprived of opportunities to
express their natural behaviour, which leads to intense
psychological, and often physical, distress. Bears and
big cats become neurotic and pace back and forth
frantically in their cages, and elephants develop
painful and crippling foot conditions and arthritis.
The chimpanzee “grin” so often seen in movies and
on TV is actually a grimace of fear, which they per-
form on command as a result of fear-based training
methods. In order to force young chimpanzees to
perform, trainers physically and psychologically abuse
them, causing the animals to be constantly anxious
and fearful, always anticipating the trainer’s next
move. When primatologist Sarah Baeckler conducted
a 14-month undercover investigation of prominent
Hollywood training facility Amazing Animal Actors, she
saw “a lot of physical violence” as well as “a lot of
punching and kicking, and the use of the ‘ugly stick,’
a sawed-off broom handle, to beat the chimps” and
“all kinds of physical abuse to keep them paying
attention and in line with the trainer.”
Chimpanzees, for instance, can live to be 60 years
old, but they stop being useful to the entertainment
industry when they are just a few years old, at which
point they become too strong and dangerous to be
handled. When trainers can no longer manage great
apes, they typically discard them at zoos or
pseudo-sanctuaries. There, the animals may languish
for decades in barren cages or dank, depressing
concrete cells.
There is no reason to use wild animals as actors when
animation, blue screen, computer-generated images
and other advanced technologies can produce
realistic substitutes. PETA advocates the use of these
alternatives and encourages entertainment-industry
professionals to pledge not to use great apes in their
work. If you see a movie that features a wild animal,
walk out and tell the theatre manager that you won’t
support the mistreatment of animals and that you
wouldd like a refund. Write to your local newspaper’s
film critic and request that he or she mention in re-
views whether or not a film features “performing” wild
animals. Educate critics about the training methods
and cruel treatment that wild animals endure off set
as well as during the production of films and
television programmes. If you see a television show or
commercial that uses a wild animal, call or write your
local network affiliate representatives to alert them to
the objectionable content.
Wild animals can pose a danger to cast and crew,
as in the case of Rocky, a 5-year-old grizzly bear who
killed his trainer during the filming of a “promotional
video”. During the 2007 filming of Speed Racer, a child
wastreated by a medic and left with a bruised arm
after a 2-year-old chimpanzee bit him without
warning.
The inappropriate use of wild animals in entertainment
and advertising can also cause public
misconceptions about the species. A survey of
patrons at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago found
that those who thought that chimpanzees were not
endangered assumed so because the animals are
commonly seen on
TV and in movies. And a study conducted at Duke
University in North Carolina revealed that the
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