Actor’s Factory-Farming Video Lets Music Icon’s Fans Meet Their Meat

For Immediate Release:
May 9, 2005

Contact:
Michael McGraw 757-622-7382

Norfolk, Va. — Pop legend Morrissey’s eagerly anticipated DVD Who Put the M in Manchester has a message beyond the self-reflective lyrics that millions of his fans around the world have come to expect: a copy of PETA’s hard-hitting video "Meet Your Meat"—narrated by actor Alec Baldwin. It might seem an odd pairing, but Morrissey, a longtime vegetarian, is fed up with the meat industry’s horrific abuse of farmed animals, and Baldwin, who has addressed Congress about the need to enforce and strengthen the Humane Slaughter Act, describes conditions on factory farms and in slaughterhouses as "beyond your worst nightmares."

"Meet Your Meat" contains shocking footage of animals, some crippled and bleeding, violently thrown into transport containers and flailing in fear down the slaughterhouse line. It asks meat-eaters to consider that chickens, pigs, and cows are sensitive, intelligent animals who experience pain, fear, love, and joy but are routinely subjected to hideous abuses on factory farms.

Says Morrissey, "I have arguments with people who are the most diehard carnivores, but once you have an intelligent debate with somebody, you can see how they begin to break down a little and their edges become softer, and you can see that this is not a difficult topic—the whole idea of vegetarianism is so simple. … Nobody can come up with a good argument for eating animals—nobody can." The 1985 album Meat Is Murder, which Morrissey recorded when he was lead singer for The Smiths, is still inspiring young people to go vegetarian.

What’s PETA’s beef with meat? Animals on factory farms suffer mutilations and other forms of abuse from which cats and dogs are legally protected. Pigs are confined to concrete-floored stalls and have their tails cut off—and male pigs are also castrated—without pain relief. Chickens are jam-packed into wire cages, and their sensitive beaks are cut off so that they can’t peck each other. At slaughter, many chickens are still conscious when their throats are slit and they are scalded alive in feather-removal tanks. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors, cows are often dismembered while they are still conscious.

For more information and to view the video, please visit GoVeg.com.