Will Top Oscar®️ Nominees Swing Into Action for Monkeys? PETA Thinks So!
For Immediate Release:
February 27, 2025
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
Tinseltown may be tied up in knots after Oscar®️ Sunday, courtesy of PETA, which is gifting top nominees a custom hammock emblazoned with the message “Let Monkeys Swing Free!” to sway Hollywood stars to speak out against using monkeys in movies and government-funded experiments. Included in the “Everyone Wins” Nominee Gift Bags independently distributed by Distinctive Assets, PETA’s hammocks will include a note to A-listers that monkeys suffer profoundly when they’re stolen from their mothers as infants and forced into lives of servitude—whether in La-La Land or a laboratory.
“While Hollywood celebrates its biggest night, monkeys are being used as props and pincushions by shameless exhibitors and experimenters,” says PETA’s Director of Animals in Film and Television, Lauren Thomasson. “PETA is asking top Oscar®️ nominees to push movie studios for a permanent switch to CGI and other humane technologies and to use their platforms to urge Congress to support animal-free research methods.”
Monkeys used in the film industry are unwilling performers, forced to perform confusing tricks in unnatural environments, which causes them severe stress. Many suffer from loneliness and depression as their complex physical and psychological needs cannot be met at training facilities or on sets. Scientific studies have found that portraying primates alongside humans in popular media increases the public’s desire to keep them as “pets,” fueling unscrupulous dealers who have no regard for primates’ welfare or the law. Meanwhile, monkeys used by experimenters are stolen from their homes in the forests of Asia, crammed into tiny wooden crates, and flown to U.S. laboratories where they are poisoned, mutilated, and ultimately killed in cruel and wasteful tests that lack relevance to humans.
Note: The “Everyone Wins” Nominee Gift Bags are NOT affiliated in any way with the OSCARS®️ or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which does not award, sponsor, endorse, or provide these gift bags. Neither the Academy nor Distinctive Assets wants there to be any association between the “Everyone Wins” Nominee Gift Bags and the OSCARS®️ or the Academy.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on or use for entertainment”—points out thatEvery Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
