Wingapalooza Can Cluck Off! Chickens’ Plea Hits Springfield TV
For Immediate Release:
October 31, 2022
Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382
When people hear the word “chicken,” do most of them imagine food—maybe even Buffalo wings—or a smart and sensitive individual who values her own life? The right answer, from a bird’s-eye view, is what some sassy hens will bring into focus in a new PETA TV spot airing locally ahead of Wingapalooza on Saturday.
Hitting airwaves in the home of the world’s oldest wing festival, the 30-second video features focus-group participants who laugh and joke about eating and tearing into chicken, but when the lights come up, the embarrassed group sees that they’re being studied by a flock of chickens standing behind a one-way mirror. The video concludes, “Chickens need their wings. You don’t.”
“Americans eat more than 1 million chickens an hour, and although we don’t often reflect on it, it’s a fact that every chicken feels pain and fear and wants to live as much as you or I do,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is urging everyone to see chickens for who they are and give tasty vegan wings a try instead.”
Chickens are inquisitive animals who can complete complex mental tasks, learn from watching each other, demonstrate self-control, and worry about the future. In the meat industry, they’re bred to grow so large that their legs often become crippled under their own weight, and in slaughterhouses, their throats are slit, often while they’re still conscious. PETA has lots of video footage that would make chicken consumers lose their lunch.
The thought-provoking ad will run during The Today Show, Live With Kelly and Ryan, Late Night With Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and other shows Tuesday through Saturday.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers a free vegan starter kit and a list of meat-free wings available at grocery stores. Visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
