MSNBC: Dear Hollywood: Please spare the pooches

[Guest guest]

Dear Hollywood: Please spare the pooches

Blockbuster 'I Am Legend' prompts letter to save man's best friend in films

By Jake Coyle

The Associated Press

updated 3:24 p.m. AKT, Wed., Jan. 9, 2008

Dear Hollywood directors, producers and screenwriters:

I write you not as a man of a weak stomach, but as a sucker for sentimentality.

Though hardened against many of life's cruelties,

one subject touches a frayed nerve that, though

small, has the power to instantly shatter an

otherwise stoic front.

 

In your ever-churning industry of fright, terror,

sap and schlock, you may do your worst. Trot out

whatever zombies, madmen or flesh-eating

creatures of the night you will; I will sit in

the dark emotionless, barely batting an eye while

my moviegoing neighbors frantically employ

outstretched fingers as blinds and sink their

nails into distressed armrests.

 

But please, spare the puppy dogs.

 

The death of a dog is the most toxic of emotional

Kryptonite. Sure, I'm fairly helpless when it

comes to nostalgic baseball catches between

fathers and sons, but the real damage is done by

movies like " The Incredible Journey " and " Benji. "

 

Yet my letter is not prompted by such

heartwarming four-legged tales; it's your holiday

blockbuster " I Am Legend. " (If you haven't yet

seen this movie of yours, beware of spoilers

ahead.)

 

As you are no doubt aware, in the film, Will

Smith's character is one of the last humans alive

on Earth. His solitude is leavened by one thing:

man's best friend. His German shepherd - Samantha

or " Sam, " for short - is his only pal and rides

shotgun with him wherever he goes, head happily

struck out the window, tongue flapping in the

wind.

 

But in protecting her owner - no, partner - Sam

is bitten by a hairless zombie. (There's an ad

for an invisible fence.) Despite Mr. Smith's best

efforts, she quickly contracts the rabies-like

disease that has decimated the planet. When our

hero is forced to strangle his only friend with

his bare hands, he can't even stand to watch her

death, gazing helplessly away.

And, oh Lord, ditto for me.

 

An exploitation of pathos

Alfred Hitchcock once said he erred when he

suspensefully killed a boy with a bomb in 1936's

" Sabotage. " Well, I like kids fine, but it's the

dogs I can't stand to see die on the big screen.

It's an exploitation of pathos that should be

restricted by law - or at least by a " Curb Your

Dog Movies " sign.

 

Take Gary Sinise's 1992 adaptation of Steinbeck's

" Of Mice and Men. " It's not Lennie's fate that

really gets me; it's when his dog is killed that

I go a blubbery mess.

 

In Vittorio De Sica's " Umberto D " (1952), an old

man, played by Carlo Battisti, is insensitively

thrown out into the street, where the bleakness

of homelessness awaits. He eventually tries to

part with his best friend - a little pup named

Flike - to save the fella from sharing in his

inevitable fate.

 

The scene where he attempts this is arguably the

saddest thing that has ever been created in the

history of the world. If I wanted to torture

someone for information, I would make them

repeatedly watch " Umberto D " until they pleaded,

" I'll tell you anything you want, just please,

please save Flike! "

 

And if that's not enough, here are two words to

consider: Old Ye-- ... no, I can't even discuss

that one.

 

A warning: If you producers ever get your paws on

Wilson Rawls' book " Where the Red Fern Grows " for

another remake, I promise a protest that will

dwarf the writers' strike. All one has to do is

mention red ferns or the localities in which they

may or may not grow to get the waterworks started.

 

The fact is that we humans are a mean bunch, so

our downfalls are usually our own fault. But the

soul of a dog is pure before the Michael Vicks of

the world interfere.

 

As Byron wrote in " Epitaph to a Dog, " a dog is

" the firmest friend, " while man is a " vain

insect! " ever asking forgiveness.

 

Or, to simplify, puppy dogs never hurt nobody.

 

Hollywood, in the name of Lassie, throw a dog a bone.

 

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast,

rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22577865/

 

--

 

 

[Guest guest]

Re: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22577865/

Dear Hollywood: Please spare the pooches

 

This post is one of my favs of the new year. Jake Doyle's approach there is more

effective then any " Just don't do it! " message. In my own writings, I have

expressed these same thoughts on animal abuse in the media, albeit not so

eloquently. Animals in the media do get a bum rap, and our expression of animals

on the silver screen and in print is often to their detriment. But what to do?

Restrict free expression and speech thru legislation in order to protect a

perceived threat to non-humans? Not going to happen. Pine for the

days of Lassie and Flipper? Slightly more productive. But what about going to

the root of the problem and seeing if something can be done there?

 

The root cause of animal abuse in print and other media came to me the other day

when my editor changed a line in my latest article on animal rights. He added

the word anthropogenic. Which I had to look up to make sure he used it

correctly. He had. Anthropogenic means, in a nutshell, coming from humans, or of

humans and by humans.

The implication here is that whatever is created by humans can be destroyed

without much impunity; after all, we can just as easily build the house as tear

it down. We can blow up a country and then with the help of the IBRD (World

Bank), rebuild it. If we made it, then we can destroy it, and there is little

argument over our ability to do so. The problem with this logic is that not

everything on the planet is anthropogenic, or at least not yet. So there is a

consequence greater than ourselves for destroying things not of us. The

environment is just one example. There is a hesitation to either totally

transform or destroy the environment in true human fashion. The guilt would be

too much. We took God into our own hands. Yet with animals, the tendency is to

see them as God's creations, and given to us to do as we see fit. Christians

who believe that have little compunction to treat them any other way.

 

So can we just pin the root cause on Christianity and be done? Hardly, as

animal abuse comes packaged in just about all forms of world religions working

today. God or Mohammed or Vishnu is not at fault, although let's not absolve

them completely. Let's look at why we want to make everything our own, or of us,

by us? Perhaps this is just human nature? Something unique to the species that

makes us creative and cruel. If the root of animal abuse in media and animal

abuse is locked solidly within our own nature, then perhaps animals are just

screwed, thus making this article rather tedious and inconsequential.

 

But what if our nature is not to be stupid and destructive? History does

contain good-news stories to support the case that humans are actually

cooperative with other living beings and capable of great harmonies with nature.

Buddhists believe in basic goodness.

A goodness within everyone - that through karma determines its expression or

lack thereof. Stepping on an ant may be stepping on your mother, so should be

avoided whenever possible. Native cultures world over also see goodness in

everything around them, and has shown nature the respect that it deserves for

multiple thousands of years.

Unfortunately, the overall percentage of Natives and Buddhist practitioners as

world leaders is pretty close to nil. So if animal abuse is not rooted in human

nature, where is it?

 

Animal abuse is a learned trait, just as our tendanecy to anthropogenicise

everything around us. We learn from our leaders and our peers and our parents

and our clans, and through investigations in writings and media around the

globe. In short, we google. We have learned somehow that everything on the

planet is ours, and ours for the taking. But anything learned can be overridden

by additional learning, and that's the bright side. We can relearn endlessly,

much like the memory of a computer, ours can be wiped clean.

Vista's not working out for ya, erase it and try Umbuntu. Unfortunately, it's

not that easy inside the human CPU and the process is slow; but here is just one

suggestion to speed

things up:

 

Get a Dog. Adopt or purchase a mongrel or pedigree, it does not matter where or

what kind. Then get to know the dog on it's own level. Take this assertion, " Dog

is Man's Best Friend " and erase it from your memory. Try to figure out this

riddle: if your dog is not your friend, what is it, and look at the puzzle from

both perspectives, it to you as well as you to it. For example, would your dog

want to be strangled to death after being bitten by a deranged alien zombie with

rabies as done in the Will Smith blockbuster I am Legend? Get to know your dog

that well.

 

How to get to know your dog well? I happen to live with a German Shepard (named

Krypto), so after reading the review on I Am Legend I was pretty taken aback

that a dog such as the one at my feet while writing this article could be harmed

so, either fictionally

or in real time. The one thing that I have learned about man's relationship with

animals from Krypto is that he is not my friend in the way traditionally

perceived. To Krypto, I am just the pack peader, nothing more and nothing less.

He knows what he knows, and there is no need to add to that. If I were to stop

acting like his pack leader, his behavior towards me would change accordingly.

No friendship lost.

 

Diane Fossey lived amongst mountain gorillas and learned the same. Instead of

imposing her world on Didget, she learned to live in his. Unfortunately, they

were both hacked to pieces by poachers. Regardless of that setback, teaching

others to live in the animal world instead of imposing their own world on

animals is easy to do if you live with with dogs and cats (a bit more

complicated with gorillas). It just takes an understanding of animal instinct

and an open mind. A good way to further learn about dog packs is by watching the

popular show on NatG, The Dog Whisperer.

 

Once one animal psychology is understood, the rest fall into place.

Understanding pack behavior helps understand pride behavior. So getting to know

your housecat from his or her perspective is doable as well. So great, now you

and hopefully others have learned how

to become the alpha male or female in your home with domesticated animals, but

what good is that in the fight against animal abuse in the media? Well, for

one, you can now look at the world anti-anthropogenically.

 

Understanding how to reverse-anthropogenicize situations allows anyone to

write/create/produce entertainment or produce honest press about animals. It

will also probably help in all other areas of human endeavor as well, such as in

civics and the sciences. Imagine researchers putting themselves in the lab

rat's position and seeing

through their eyes. But even more practically, journalists and script writers

with this understanding may hesitate to write headlines like: Killer Elephants

Stampede Innocent Villagers, or write stupid plots that have a cargo-hold of

snakes attack everyone on a plane, or have a German Shepard being strangled to

death to save it from " suffering. " The ability to deanthropogenicize one's self

will also invoke honest information on the environment and things

planet-related, as well as negate the argument that conservation is a balance

between human needs and needs of other living beings. In a deanthropogenic

world, needs are seen more holistically, and may include a deemphasizing on the

human side more often then not.

 

Deanthropogenic thinking is compassion in disguise. The Buddhists have a word

for compassion that is from one's self: idiot compassion, and in the karmic

scheme of things this type of compassion does not count for much. Exercising

idiot compassion throughout this lifetime may just help you get squashed as an

ant in the next. On the karmic meter Will Smith's character in I Am Legend

decreases for his canine strangulation, and the screenwriter's karma goes down

as well. But simply put, if one would simply ask an animal " how would you like

to be treated or written about in the paper? " and then listen to the

animal's genetic answer, one would know what to do. Here's to all of us with

the courage to develop this type of ear.

 

Jigs

www.animalnepal.org

 

 

aapn , Kim Bartlett <anpeople wrote:

>

> Dear Hollywood: Please spare the pooches

> Blockbuster 'I Am Legend' prompts letter to save man's best friend in films

> By Jake Coyle

> The Associated Press

> updated 3:24 p.m. AKT, Wed., Jan. 9, 2008

> Dear Hollywood directors, producers and screenwriters:

> I write you not as a man of a weak stomach, but as a sucker for

sentimentality.

> Though hardened against many of life's cruelties,

> one subject touches a frayed nerve that, though

> small, has the power to instantly shatter an

> otherwise stoic front.

>

> In your ever-churning industry of fright, terror,

> sap and schlock, you may do your worst. Trot out

> whatever zombies, madmen or flesh-eating

> creatures of the night you will; I will sit in

> the dark emotionless, barely batting an eye while

> my moviegoing neighbors frantically employ

> outstretched fingers as blinds and sink their

> nails into distressed armrests.

>

> But please, spare the puppy dogs.

>

> The death of a dog is the most toxic of emotional

> Kryptonite. Sure, I'm fairly helpless when it

> comes to nostalgic baseball catches between

> fathers and sons, but the real damage is done by

> movies like " The Incredible Journey " and " Benji. "

>

> Yet my letter is not prompted by such

> heartwarming four-legged tales; it's your holiday

> blockbuster " I Am Legend. " (If you haven't yet

> seen this movie of yours, beware of spoilers

> ahead.)

>

> As you are no doubt aware, in the film, Will

> Smith's character is one of the last humans alive

> on Earth. His solitude is leavened by one thing:

> man's best friend. His German shepherd - Samantha

> or " Sam, " for short - is his only pal and rides

> shotgun with him wherever he goes, head happily

> struck out the window, tongue flapping in the

> wind.

>

> But in protecting her owner - no, partner - Sam

> is bitten by a hairless zombie. (There's an ad

> for an invisible fence.) Despite Mr. Smith's best

> efforts, she quickly contracts the rabies-like

> disease that has decimated the planet. When our

> hero is forced to strangle his only friend with

> his bare hands, he can't even stand to watch her

> death, gazing helplessly away.

> And, oh Lord, ditto for me.

>

> An exploitation of pathos

> Alfred Hitchcock once said he erred when he

> suspensefully killed a boy with a bomb in 1936's

> " Sabotage. " Well, I like kids fine, but it's the

> dogs I can't stand to see die on the big screen.

> It's an exploitation of pathos that should be

> restricted by law - or at least by a " Curb Your

> Dog Movies " sign.

>

> Take Gary Sinise's 1992 adaptation of Steinbeck's

> " Of Mice and Men. " It's not Lennie's fate that

> really gets me; it's when his dog is killed that

> I go a blubbery mess.

>

> In Vittorio De Sica's " Umberto D " (1952), an old

> man, played by Carlo Battisti, is insensitively

> thrown out into the street, where the bleakness

> of homelessness awaits. He eventually tries to

> part with his best friend - a little pup named

> Flike - to save the fella from sharing in his

> inevitable fate.

>

> The scene where he attempts this is arguably the

> saddest thing that has ever been created in the

> history of the world. If I wanted to torture

> someone for information, I would make them

> repeatedly watch " Umberto D " until they pleaded,

> " I'll tell you anything you want, just please,

> please save Flike! "

>

> And if that's not enough, here are two words to

> consider: Old Ye-- ... no, I can't even discuss

> that one.

>

> A warning: If you producers ever get your paws on

> Wilson Rawls' book " Where the Red Fern Grows " for

> another remake, I promise a protest that will

> dwarf the writers' strike. All one has to do is

> mention red ferns or the localities in which they

> may or may not grow to get the waterworks started.

>

> The fact is that we humans are a mean bunch, so

> our downfalls are usually our own fault. But the

> soul of a dog is pure before the Michael Vicks of

> the world interfere.

>

> As Byron wrote in " Epitaph to a Dog, " a dog is

> " the firmest friend, " while man is a " vain

> insect! " ever asking forgiveness.

>

> Or, to simplify, puppy dogs never hurt nobody.

>

> Hollywood, in the name of Lassie, throw a dog a bone.

>

> © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

> This material may not be published, broadcast,

> rewritten or redistributed.

> URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22577865/