comicbookmovie / CC

Quick recap for you, in case you missed it:

1) Late last summer, PETA contacted the producers of Speed Racer to urge them to use alternatives to live animals on set, after a chimpanzee bit a young actor.
2) Despite thousands of emails from individuals who were made aware of this abuse by PETA’s campaign, the Speed Racer team continued to use live animals—and another incident occurred in Germany: A representative of the American Humane Association (AHA) witnessed a trainer hitting a chimpanzee on set.
3) The AHA gave the movie an “unacceptable” rating on their site. No one noticed.

The question here is as follows: What is the point of having a representative of your organization on the sets of movies if the only thing they’re empowered to do is write a bad review on their website? Why not just send the guy from IWatchStuff.com? He could do all that and make it witty and interesting.

The other point here (which the AHA conveniently glosses over) is that most abuse occurs off the set, during training. Even when the AHA rates a movie "unacceptable,” as with this case, the animal trainer is allowed to continue working with the animal. And when the film-industry-funded AHA does rate a film "acceptable," all that means is that no animals were harmed on the set while in plain sight of an AHA representative. Which is like saying you know your kids don’t smoke pot ’cuz you’ve never seen them doing it.

There are some things that can be done, though. PETA's German affiliate has just filed a formal complaint in Potsdam calling for an immediate investigation and the filing of all appropriate charges against Greg Lille, the California-based animal trainer who assaulted the chimpanzee on the Speed Racer set. If Greg Lille is found to have violated German animal protection laws, it’ll be a lot harder for him to ever work with animals in the future. We’ll let you know how that turns out. And there’s plenty more information about PETA’s campaign to get animals out of show business for good on our No More Monkey Business website.

P.S. Speed Racer was a monumental box office disaster. :-)

You may remember that there were hearings last month in support of a bill that would have banned the use of cruel bullhooks in the entire state of California. And no bullhooks means less pain and suffering for elephants in circuses or on the sets of commercials or movies, so it is a super important piece of legislation. It was supported not only by PETA, but essentially the entire animal protection community. The only animal advocacy group who sided with the circus industry in opposing the bullhook ban was the American Humane Association (AHA). I wonder if AHA is more concerned about protecting the film industry, and the huge contributions they receive to monitor films, than the animals they are supposed to protect. . . .

Anyway, here’s the letter we sent the AHA’s board of directors asking them wtf is up. The bill is still in committee and can still be called up for a vote, so for the elephants’ sake, here’s hoping the AHA come to their senses and get behind it . . .

We caught up with Weeds star Kevin Nealon last week to shoot a little PSA in our veggie testimonial series, in which vegetarian celebrities talk about what got them to make the switch to a meatless diet. At the end of the shoot, Kevin wanted to take a few moments to talk about the ridiculous kangaroo-leather bill—SB 880—that's ominously making its way through the legislature in his home state of California. He also took the opportunity to finally speak openly about his deep-seated fears about driving in reverse. If you're from California, and you share Kevin's distaste for anti-kangaroo legislation, you can take action here. If you also share his phobia about driving backwards, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help you.