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.