For Immediate Release:
December 9, 2021
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Los Angeles – After a whistleblower informed PETA that a pig was shot and killed for Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Danish Netflix series, the group sent a letter to co-CEO Reed Hastings asking for the scene to be cut.
“Killing a sentient being and exploiting that death for the sake of entertainment is unacceptable and may be illegal,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “No animal should suffer or die for human entertainment, and PETA is calling on Netflix to leave on the cutting room floor any footage that might glorify this pig’s needless, senseless slaughter.”
PETA has been told that the farmer who supplied live pigs admitted that one was going to be killed specifically for a scene in the show. Copenhagen Zoo confirmed receiving a dead pig from the production, and Danish police are currently investigating. The Danish Animal Welfare Law states, “Animals shall not be trained or used in shows, circus performances, film shootings, or the like if the animal thereby suffers significant discomfort.”
PETA urges anyone who witnesses cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry to report it by calling the group’s whistleblower hotline at 323-210-2233 or by visiting PETA.org/Report. Whistleblowers’ anonymity will be taken very seriously.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
