Our Children and Other Animals: Socializing Speciesism through Children's Media

This new book critically examines the socialization of the human domination of other animals, with a focus on the socialization sites of the family, mass media, formal education system and digital media. While the book focuses on the contemporary UK, it also attends to the historical formation of children’s relations with other animals in Britain, and to the inflection of UK popular culture by global giants in the construction of animal iconography, such as Disney and Nintendo.

A central argument of the book is that children’s ethical capacities are systematically distorted by the capitalist imperative to commodify nonhuman animals (as food, experimental tools, objects of entertainment and so on) and that an elective affinity therefore exists between the practices of commodification and the cultural products that distract children’s attention from those practices, at the same time as subtly legitimating them. The instrumentalizing imperative penetrates every aspect of the socialization process, disguised by the ‘cute’ anthropomorphic iconography of children’s culture, which can be found in food packaging, clothing, movies, magazines, teaching materials and online games that feature nonhumans as ‘pets’ or ‘farmed’ animals. This iconography paints a veneer of affectivity over human-nonhuman animal relations that allow the socialization of domination to proceed smoothly, focusing children’s affective concern for animals on fictional characters or relatively protected nonhumans, such as animal companions or members of iconic free-living species. Children’s unwitting complicity with the exploitation and violence that characterizes human uses of other animals is thereby facilitated.

The book also considers how these kinds of anthroparchal inter-species relations intersect with intra-human inequalities, especially of gender and age: ethical concern for other animals is initially encouraged in the socialization process, but is thereafter associated both with human infancy itself as an immature stage of human relationships with other animals, but also with femininity through the construction of a ‘fluffy nexus of sentimentality’ that articulates affective relations with ‘cute’ animals with girlhood. In this linking of infancy, femininity and affectivity for other animals, we argue that the seeds are sown of an anthroparchal, patriarchal and ageist adult culture’s disparagement of the animal rights and vegan movement as infantile, irrational and trivial. The book ends with a consideration of how the vegan movement is responding to the challenge of anthroparchal socialization, through the analysis of the emerging genre of vegan children’s literature. This new cultural development offers some hope that the socialization of the normality of domination can be challenged and that children’s capacities to forge ethical relations with nonhuman animals can flourish in a post-anthroparchal environment.

We hope that the book will interest critical animal studies and human-animal studies scholars across a range of disciplines, but especially within sociology. We are active members of the BSA (British Sociological Association) Animal/Human Studies Group (AHSG), regularly presenting our work at the BSA annual conference. We are pleased to report that attendance at ASHG panels and ad hoc sessions about animals are becoming better attended year on year, and we look forward to building on that momentum in 2015, when we’ll once again be panellists at the BSA conference, discussing some of the ideas from the book. One of our ambitions for the book is that it will foster connections with sociologists working in different areas of the discipline, especially childhood studies, the sociology of the family, education, popular culture as well as social theorists.

ASA members who are interested in the book can download the introduction chapter from the publisher’s website, free of charge. A podcast of us discussing the book, with fellow sociologist Dr Roger Yates, is available by clicking here.  A review by Corey Wrenn is available by clicking here.

We would be delighted to hear from any ASA members who are interested in our work and we can be contacted at:

Dr Matthew Cole, The Open University, UK: m.d.d.c.cole@open.ac.uk

Dr Kate Stewart, University of Nottingham, UK: kate.stewart@nottingham.ac.uk

One Gorilla, Two Gorillas, Three Gorillas, Four. Gorillas are for laughs? Or to abhor?

Hollywood has fed an unforgettable image of gorillas to audiences of King Kong for generations.

Zoos display gorillas in both live exhibits and as climbable statues.

Environmental stewardship organizations present the amber-eyed faces of gorillas with pleas for support.

A life-size concrete gorilla (undoubtedly with a backstory) even stands at the corner of an Arby’s parking lot in Madison, Wisconsin.   

The gorilla image is also used to sell products from glue to horticultural tents (both emphasizing strength and toughness), and from children’s cereal to candy bars.  Of these last two, the former – a mural-like rendering of an adult gorilla seated behind a photographed bowl of EnviroKids Organic Gorilla Munch – has experienced its own popularity as an Internet meme with iterations of the phrase, “That really rustled my jimmies.”  The latter gorilla image comes from a 2007 commercial for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate and features a male actor in a gorilla suit.

With appearances in these various places, products, and representations, how are we to know what a gorilla is…  A vehicle of entertainment?  A messenger for conservation?  A mascot, and if so, to be feared or endeared?

***

Janine Benyus reflects upon historical presentations of gorillas in her recently published book The Secret Language of Animals: A Guide to Remarkable Behavior.  She writes:

Don’t you wonder how anyone could have portrayed this peaceable animal

as “nature’s most savage beast” for so many years?  The answer, of course, was in the profits.  Circuses that housed a “dangerous killer” drew record crowds...  As a result, fears and myths about gorillas became embedded in our culture.

History has shown that gorillas need not be present for audiences to find “them” amusing.  Enter the infamous man-in-a-gorilla-suit.  Whether at a circus, like the one shown below in Calcutta, or in advertisement, like Cadbury’s Phil Collins mimic, gorilla antics – even of human invention – are fair game for derision. 

Despite laughter and media playfulness surrounding gorilla images, it seems the “savage beast” representation endures most strongly.  “Not too long ago,” Beynus adds, “a survey taken among British schoolchildren showed that gorillas ranked right up there with snakes and rats as the kids’ most hated animals.”

Does hating this mostly vegetarian, sociable, intelligent, curious being cause us any conflict?  
Or can we separate the Kong and gorilla-suits from true gorillaness?

SOURCES

Literature
Benyus, Janine M. (2014). The Secret Language of Animals. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.
New York. 

Images
1.  serkis.com
2.  Brookfield Zoo (the author's)
3.  Madison, WI (the author's)
4. ourgreenhome.ca
5. Gorilla grow tent poster (the author's)
6.  Cadbury's Gorilla video on YouTube (screenshot by the author)
7.  Mark, Mary Ellen. (2014). "Plate 86: Twin brothers Tulsi and Basant, Great Famous Circus, Calcutta, India, 1989."  Man and Beast, Photographs from Mexico and India. University of Texas Press
8. orvis.com

STK Open Call: Exploring Species-Gender Intersections in DC Steakhouse

A new steakhouse  has opened in Washington, DC that relies heavily on sexualized women to glamorize animal flesh as sexy, trendy, edgy, and available.  Many of the photographs used to promote the restaurant utilize thin, young, and mostly white female models.  This is done to create a sense of pleasurable consumption. As Carol Adams has argued--sex and animal foods are often overlapped to give an impression to the privileged consumer that the products of oppression are given freely and happily. Just as patriarchy convinces us that women really want it (sex, rape, violence, humiliation, etc.), it also convinces us that other feminized bodies really want this violation, too. Indeed, this fetishization becomes marketable.

Unfortunately, what this means for women and animals is that the violence enacted against them is sexualized, romanticized, and normalized. Notice the disembodied woman in high heels with a meat cleaver--extreme violence is being associated with sexual desire. Given the epidemic levels of violence against women, this should be serious cause for concern. As for Nonhuman Animals, like the woman in this image, they are fragmented and only made visible in consumable pieces of chopped up flesh.  These images want us to stay focused on meat; they don't want us thinking about the woman or cow they were attached to. That isn't sexy--that makes us think, and thinking interferes with sales.

Customers can come to STK to get their meat served up pretty. The website is careful to frequently juxtapose human meat with nonhuman meat. Human and nonhuman bodies are presented as interchangeable, fragmented, and completely and utterly objectified.

Models hired to promote the restaurant are literally branded with the store logo, marked as STK property as cows are in the feedlots of STK suppliers.  Again, this logo is quite indicative of the close association between the oppression of women and other animals. With a pouty lipsticked kiss, the mass murder of Nonhuman Animals and the objectification of women is made flirty and sexy.

Sexualized women routinely show up in STK adverts as well, even when they have nothing to do whatsoever with the product. Notice there are not even any pictures of food or drinks in the Apple Pie Day advertisement. In the happy hour advert, it is suggested that female customers at STK drink booze in positions of sexual availability (the mixing of alcohol with the sexual availability of women, incidentally, is the symboblic language of rape culture).  Women are used as signifiers:  Enact your privilege here.

A sexualized woman is even used to sell dead animal parts for charity. Ironically, the charity, UNICEF, is concerned with childhood hunger...and the Western animal-based diet that STK satiates is one reason why this hunger exists. Third world nations are often left unable to provide food for their own inhabitants, as much of the food they grow is used as feed for those Nonhuman Animals destined for Western consumption.  The violence enacted on these colonized peoples, like that which is enacted on women and Nonhuman Animals, remains largely invisible behind the glamour of youth, beauty, sex, and money whipped up in STK campaigning.

The vegan-feminist critique featured in this essay is based on the work of Carol Adams.  Thanks to Ivy Collier for bringing this steakhouse ad campaign to my attention.

Cats and War

We all know by now that the Internet is run by cats. But the social media accounts of Islamist fighters in the Middle East?

Apparently, some ISIS fighters have been posting these provocative images of cats posed with guns and other weapons recently on their Twitter and Instagram accounts, accompanied by the hashtag #CatsOfJihad.

While these strangely cute photos may be useful as a recruiting tool to incite more young people to join the Jihadist movement, and may even be moving Westerners to join, there is something ironic about using images of soft and cuddly animals posed with deadly weapons to advertise war.

We all know how deadly war is to humans. But many people don't stop to think about how deadly it is to non-human animals. Both domesticated and wild animals are dragged into, harmed by, and killed by wars. Dogs, horses, cattle, bees, pigeons, elephants, dolphins, and countless other animals have been used as military service animals for thousands of years, and there is no way to know how many have been "sacrificed" in all of the wars in which they have "served."

And then as "civilians," they have suffered just as civilian humans have from bombing and fighting in their lands and homes, as well as from the needs of both the soldiers and refugees who often feed on them. Not only that, but they are affected by wars for years afterwards, thanks to the environmental consequences of chemical weapons, burning of fuels, dumping of ammunition, testing of bombs, and radioactivity.

War means death--death to humans, and death to animals. And no amount of squee photos of kittens hugging grenades will change that sad fact.

A Dog in the Yearbook

Service animals have been getting increasing attention lately; a story went viral last month about a US Airways flight that had to make an emergency landing after a service dog pooped in the aisles (not once, but twice), and the smell apparently sickened a number of passengers.

Recently there have been conflicts and even lawsuits over whether service animals can enter certain businesses; many people feel that there is quite a bit of ambiguity over what the term "service animal" actually means, what functions they serve, and how those animals are trained and identified (and to make it more confusing, the law does not require either the person to carry a certification nor the animal to be identified with a special harness or collar). But in the United States, the law is clear: trained service animals are given legal protections by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which means that businesses and government agencies must provide accomodations for them.

Some agencies go further and embrace these animals and the important work they do.

Taxi, who works with 14-year old Rachel Benke, who has a seizure disorder, accompanies Rachel to all of her classes at Hector Garcia Middle School in San Antonio Texas every day. He's been working with Rachel for the past four years, notifying her when she's about to have a seizure, which has helped to save her life on more than one occasion.

Even though the principal at Rachel's school was originally unhappy about Taxi's presence at the school, today he's such an important part of Rachel's life as well as the school community that he got his own picture in the school yearbook, right next to Rachel's.

Service dogs perform incredibly important services for people with physical and emotional issues, filling a need that it seems that no human or machine can fill. While most are no doubt loved for their work, it is nice to see a highly visible acknowledgement like this once in a while, especially at a time when their status is being debated so publicly.

Not only does Taxi's yearbook picture demonstrate his importance to and participation in the lives of the students and faculty at Hector Garcia Middle School, it also, like the increasing prevalence of pet obituaries in our nation's newspapers, begins to move animals like Taxi every so slightly into the category of person.

What Makes a Family?

Clearly, at least in the wealthy countries of the industrialized and post-industrialized world, our pets are our family. For millions of people today, we dote on our companion animals, buying them the best food, toys, and beds (when they are not sleeping in ours), taking them on vacations, and including them in our family photos.

Fighting over catnip sprouts. by Jason Houge

But what about feral cats?


The very definition of feral--from the Latin fera, meaning "wild beast"--suggests that they are clearly not members of the family. These domesticated (but not tame) cats, who live around the periphery of human societies, are viewed as pests, disease hosts, wildlife killers, and worse by most observers. They are subject to a wide variety of control and eradication policies around the world, up to and including killing them, although in the United States, it is still illegal to intentionally kill a cat, even if feral. But that doesn't mean that it isn't done.

Diane ran past some visitors who came to see the kittens. By Jason Houge

Still, many animal lovers care for the cats in feral cat colonies, feeding them, and catching them in order to have them spayed and neutered or given medical care. 


But one man, photographer Jason Houge, who shares his rural property with a colony of feral cats in Green Bay, Wisconsin, takes "family photographs" of them as well.

His lovely, and often intimate photos of the many cats on his property, all of whom he cares for, makes them feel as if they are truly part of his family. This is so different from the way that feral cats are usually seen; to borrow a phrase from anthropologist Mary Douglas, they are "matter out of place"  (1966).

Like dirt, to which Douglas was referring, they are not just dirty, but they literally don't fit into our conceptual categories; they are not cute and cuddly, you cannot hold them--they are not PETS. Like pigeons, another culturally problematic animal, they are hated.

Family Portrait: Ernie, Mumma and their 9 kittens. By Jason Houge

But Houge doesn't just not hate them, and he doesn't just care for them. His photos almost re-domesticate them, making us remember what makes us love cats in the first place, and want to bring them into our families in the first place--their playfulness, their lovingness, and yes, a bit of their wildness too.

This last photo he's titled "Family Portrait," and it includes the entire kitty family.

Human Like Me

While pet portraits seem to be everywhere we turn, they aren’t a recent phenomenon, in fact, one of the earliest animal portraits date back to 15,000 BC where bison and other animal paintings were carved in Lascaux caves in France.

In contemporary time, thanks to social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, pet portraits circulate through society like lightening. Within a few seconds a proud pet parent can snap a picture of their beloved pooch with their mobile phone and upload it to several social media outlets for friends and family to enjoy. Sometimes those portraits or videos go viral and become a cult favorite like The Disapproving Rabbits, Colonel Meow (Colonel Meow recently passed away this past January, RIP), or I am sure everyone’s favorite, Talking Dog. In addition to pet portraits floating around the Internet, many have framed pictures at home and at work to celebrate their love for their pet. In fact, here’s the picture I have on my work desk.

                                                                                             

So what makes us want to watch hours of cat videos or why do we have more pictures of Fido on our phone than of friends or our Mom? What makes us say “oh how cute!” when the neighbor shows us the latest picture of her bunny? What is the unspoken connection that we have with our pets that we can’t quite put our finger on?



Could it be anthropomorphism? Do we project human emotions onto our cherished pets? Do our pets really feel guilt, loneliness, or jealousy? Photographer Maija Astikainen is exploring this exact possibility through her portrait series, One-Dog Policy which started in 2010 and is an ongoing project. 

When you scroll through the portraits, ask yourself what emotions you see upon these pups’ faces. Do you see a Bulldog lamenting his upcoming bath? Do you see a depressed Greyhound on the sofa yearning for her pet parent to return home? Do you see a guilty dog peering from behind a white dining table; did he eat the baked chicken that was sitting there minutes ago?

Regardless if you see the same emotions as I did in these portraits or believe that's its only anthropomorphism, you cannot deny that there is a powerful bond between people and their pets, one that is almost magical and certainly timeless.

To see Maija Astikainen’s portrait series- click here and feel free to comment on your thoughts below.

Animals on the Table: Centerpieces

Captive animals have been objects of human gaze since the popularity of public zoos in the 19th century and as part of private menageries and collections before that.  Nonhuman animals have an even longer history appearing on dining tables for consumption by humans.  Oftentimes, the form of the animal is non-recognizable as just a piece of meat.  But sometimes – as famously linked with Henry VIII at his Tudor feasts – the animal appears as it did when alive, carefully reconstructed to be a stunning centerpiece.

Today, getting attention in magazines and on Pinterest, are table-displays with captive, live animals.

 

While goldfish, guppies, and bettas are the most common live animals gazed upon as centerpieces, the April 2014 issue of Martha Stewart Living has an idea for Easter decorations this year:  live rabbits.

While it might not be shocking that Martha and her editors have considered rabbits commodities for gustatory consumption, as demonstrated by a recipe she shared with readers in March 2001, it is a curious choice they’ve made to refer to real rabbits as Easter décor.  The verbiage of this How-To, along with its accompanying image, seem to consider live rabbits as easy-to-handle trinkets you might happen to have at your disposal.



"Add to the holiday tableau... if you have them on hand, a couple of Hotot bunnies."

Dwarf Hotots are cute as heck with those sweet faces and ‘eyeliner’ peepers, but even if it would be possible to get them to sit still as centerpieces, why the suggestion that readers try?  Back in February 2011, Martha met with a representative from the House Rabbit Society and learned of the unique needs of rabbits as “wonderful companions.”  Her website even includes adoption tips.  Yet, somehow, this year, real bunnies have been given a role of utility on par with craft moss and artificial, pastel eggs.


It is difficult to imagine Martha and her team suggesting the use of a few live, black kittens for a Hallowe’en centerpiece, or a couple of Labrador Retriever puppies – America’s most popular dog breed in 2013 – for a Memorial Day display.  (And her readers would surely be appalled at the idea of braising any of those animals with olives.)


How does a fish, rabbit or any other animal benefit from being on display on the table?
As a feast for the eyes, the live-animal "centerpiece" is ironically human-centered.


REFERENCES
Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking, New York: Pantheon, 1980.
www.akc.org


IMAGES
Swan Centerpiece: www.infobarrel.com/Tudor_Food
Goldfish Centerpiece:  brides.prestonbailey.com/2012/02/09/goldfish-wedding-centerpiece/
Betta Centerpiece: eyedealshopping.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Fish-centerpieces-200x300.jpg

Grief Bacon

Lately I've been thinking about how we grieve, or don't grieve, for animals, and for which kinds of animals.


I've started working on a new book about the subject because while it's clear that people who call themselves animal lovers grieve quite strongly for their own animals when they die (that's what the Rainbow Bridge was created for, after all), most people don't think at all about the billions of animals per year who die to fill our bellies.

That's why I was struck by this image that has been floating around the Internet this week, and by the interesting German name associated with it: "Kummerspeck," which translates to, as the image says, "Grief Bacon."

The idea is that for many people who overeat when they are stressed or unhappy, putting on weight in the process, that weight is called "grief bacon." It can just as easily be called "unhappy fat" or "sadness fat" since technically "speck" means fat (pig fat, actually) but "grief bacon" sounds more pleasing to the American ear, I think.

But what if we turned around the notion of "grief bacon" and looked at it another way? What if, instead, we looked at bacon and felt grief for the dead pig whose life was taken in order to produce the bacon? What if the emotion of grief wasn't the sadness of the emotional eater, but the sadness of the griever, grieving for the pig who never got to feel any happiness in his or her life?

What if this was the new image that went viral with the words "Grief Bacon?"

The Sexual Politics of Vegan Food

Carol Adams has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat, arguing that women and other animals are both sexualized and commodified to facilitate their consumption (both figuratively and literally) by those in power. One result has been the feminization of veganism and vegetarianism.  This has the effect of delegitimizing, devaluing, and defanging veganism as a social movement.

But this process works within the vegan movement as well, with an open embracing of veganism as inherently feminized and sexualized.  This works to undermine a movement (that is comprised mostly of women) and repackage it for a patriarchal society.  Instead of strong, political collective of women, we have yet another demographic of sexually available individual women who exist for male consumption.

Take a browse through vegan cookbooks on Amazon, and the theme of “sexy veganism” that emerges is unmistakable.

Oftentimes, veganism is presented as a means of achieving idealized body types.  These books are mostly geared to a female audience, as society values women primarily as sexual resources for men, and women have internalized these gender norms.  Many of these books bank on the power of thin privilege, sizism, and stereotypes about female competition for male attention to shame women into purchasing.

To reach a male audience, however, authors have to draw on a notion of “authentic masculinity” to make a highly feminized concept palatable to a patriarchal society where all that is feminine is scorned.  Some have referred to this trend as “heganism.”  The idea is to protect male superiority by unnecessarily gendering veganism into veganism for girls and veganism for boys.  For the boys, authors have to appeal to “real” manhood. Thankfully Meat Is For Pussies (A How-to Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names) appears to be out of print.

The vegan movement also favors the tactic of turning women into consumable objects in the exact same way that meat industries do.  Hardee's might have nearly naked women writhing on automobiles with dripping hamburgers, but vegan organizations mimic this by recruiting “lettuce ladies” or “cabbage chicks” dressed as vegetables to interact with the public.  PETA routinely has nude women pose in and among vegetables to convey the idea that women are sexy food.  Vegan pinup sites and strip joints also feed into this notion.  It is the co-optation and erosion of what is essentially a women’s movement.  Instead of empowering women on behalf of animals, these approaches could be disempowering women by preserving a patriarchal framework.