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September 1999 Media Watcher How to "Humanely" Boil a Lobster, Tatoo on Pigs and Other Foibles By Anne Sullivan

 

Face it, it feels good to win. Even if you had nothing to do with it, it’s cool when your side kicks butt. So imagine the thrill vegans everywhere experienced when the Vegans beat the Deli Workers on Comedy Central’s VS, a show which pits opposing factions against one another in a game-show format. The game was a close one but the vegans answered “tahini” at the last minute and brought home the fakin’ bacon. The host of the show didn’t provide any moral support by chiding that “vegans are always hungry” and “all that protein” led the deli workers to score points. But the vegan contestants proved that eating meat does not make for higher intelligence. Sure they were hungry—hungry to win. I can’t wait for the show in which PETA members take on hunters. A fair match? I think not.

Less than thrilling, reruns don’t usually spark my interest. A recent rerun of Designing Women on the Lifetime channel, however, caught my eye as it tackled the issue of fur. The episode featured Delta Burke’s character sporting a fur hat and obnoxiously defending her choice while the other characters took offense. She pointed out the contradictions of those who consider fur inhumane but still eat meat, and proceeded to model her fur coat and hat at a fashion show. Conveniently enough, anti-fur protesters were sitting in the audience and shouted such catchy phrases as “How does it feel to have a corpse on your back?” After hurting her arm in the ensuing scuffle, she had the doctor put a sling on the outside of the coat—she was determined to continue wearing the fur. After a week of roasting inside the coat, this designing woman had overcome her fur fetish. So if that’s what it takes, maybe global warming isn’t such a bad idea.

Apparently it’s not warm enough over at Vogue. The magazine devoted a page to the newest furs found on the runway: skunk and ermine fur by Louis Vuitton, coyote pelts by Michael Kors, and possum skin courtesy of Olivier Theysken. Vogue turned up the heat and ran the infamous picture of Courtney Love in a fur collar, even though she maintains it was faux. Even if it wasn’t, I’d accept the “faux” pas from Love who has become a vocal opponent of the fur industry of late.

All of this hype surrounding fur is just fluff anyway. According to a story on fur in the San Francisco Chronicle, sales were down five percent in 1998. The real story on fur can be found in the industry’s trade publications, not in pelt-pushing fashion rags.

Vogue’s assault on the natural world continued past the pages featuring furs and shoes made out of lizard, python, and alligator skin. An in-depth article on lobster merely read as a rationalization of the writer’s guilt, “Whenever I boiled lobsters, I left the kitchen to keep from hearing them try to push the cover off the pot.” In researching the article, author Jeffery Steingarten contacted animal welfare groups for a “humane” way to kill lobsters. The ASPCA’s animal-science-and-behavior expert guessed that a knife to the head would do the job since it kills the lobster instantly (suggested method: driving a heavy knife between the eyes). The British Universities Federation for Animal Welfare advocates plunging the lobster into already boiling water. The Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, however, finds boiling unacceptable and, ironically, suggests anesthetizing lobsters in an icy slush for at least 20 minutes before dropping them into the boiling pot. How thoughtful. The writer then plunged into murky waters as he attempted to explain the physiology of lobsters, focusing on their nervous systems and their mating rituals (!). His shoddy justifications (“Adult lobsters are extremely aggressive with other lobsters and are even capable of cannibalism...”) didn’t make amends for the author’s newly-acquired blood lust: “The more you kill, the easier it gets.” Hannibal Lecter’s got nothing on this guy.

Leaving the carnage behind, I turned to Jane magazine which had vegan actress Natalie Portman gracing its cover. Portman, who played Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode 1-The Phantom Menace, was described as “intelligent, funny, and well-adjusted” (yes, a vegan was indeed described as “well-adjusted”). The young star is so well-respected that her interviewer, actress Susan Sarandon, worried that her lunch of barbecued shrimp might offend Portman. Which leads me to think how much more bearable Thanksgiving dinner could be if meat-eaters put the same consideration into their choice of food. With the good, however, comes the bad—Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls was interviewed while downing a plate of fish for dinner. I had been under the impression that my favorite “Spice” was veggie. So, she’s that kind of “vegetarian”.

A recent issue of Stuff magazine (a new venture of Maxim magazine) detailed the work of Belgian artist Wim Delvoy. His “art” consists of tattooing images on the skins of live pigs. Delvoy has tried to keep animal rights activists off his back by anesthesizing the animals before the procedure is done (each pig is put down for two hours every week). Furthermore, he insists that he saves the pigs’ lives when he buys them from death row at the local slaughter house. As far as I’m concerned, he should be taken to task for the tacky designs, such as skulls, devils, Harleys, and marijuana leaves, he inks on the poor pigs (talk about bad taste). I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression, but this is ridiculous. I’m sure the pigs would agree.