Earthlings
Since we all inhabit the earth,
all of us are considered earthlings.
There is no sexism, no racism or speciesism in the term Earthling.
It encompasses each and every one of us.
Warm- or cold-blooded.
Mammal, vertebrate or invertebrate.
Bird, reptile, amphibian, fish and human alike.
Humans, therefore, being not the only species on the planet, share this world with millions of others living creatures as we all evolve here together.
So begins the introductory monologue of the 2005 movie Earthlings, which I watched on recommendation from a friend.
I
Even though the movie is described as a documentary on Wikipedia, it is clearly an activist film. I was able to deduce this from the fact that it premiered at the Artivist Film Festival. While the creators probably were not impartial on the topic (well, who could be?), it is a great watch. The theme of Earthlings is the way humans treat other sentient creatures at their mercy. There is no story or even central characters. The movie is a sequence of videos, many of them filmed in secret, showing animals being kept in horrible conditions or straight out tortured. Some show injured cows dangling from chains in slaughterhouses. Others show seals being clubbed to death by hunters. One shows a live dog that is thrown into a hydraulic trash compactor. The images are nothing for people with a weak stomach. (Well, eating the stuff that comes out of factory farms probably isn’t healthy for people with digestive problems either.)
II
Joaquin Phoenix, the narrator, spends some time talking about speciesism. According to the movie, speciesism is “a prejudice or attitude or bias in favor of the interest of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species”. While I have heard that concept before, I have never given it serious thought. At first glance, it sounds ridiculous. Of course, humans care more about other humans than about mice or pigs or iguanas. However, once I moved past the weirdness, the term began making sense. After all, animals can feel pain, they have emotions, some may even dream. The distinction between us and them, while logical from a taxonomic perspective, doesn’t make a lot of sense from an ethical point of view.
I try to take something away from every movie I watch. That didn’t prove too easy here because I am familiar with the arguments and have made efforts to reduce my impact on animal suffering. However, watching this movie encouraged me to try to further reduce my egg intake and start looking for cheese that has been certified to ensure a minimum standard of animal welfare.
III
This review comes in three acts, so let’s hear some criticism! At the beginning and the end, the screen showed videos of wild animals running in packs, playing with their children and flying majestically across the sky while the narrator talks about our need to respect a world much older than ours. To quote:
Isn’t it enough that animals the world over live in permanent retreat from human progress and expansion? And for many species there is simply nowhere else to go. It seems the fate of many animals is either to be unwanted by men or wanted too much. […] But it takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal and it is actually within us to grant them a happy life – and a long one.
If I understand this correctly, the filmmakers want to suggest that animals would live pleasurable lives if humans just left them in their natural habitats. Earthlings also includes a section about zoos and heavily criticizes them for imprisoning animals to provide entertainment. Sure, an animal in an enclosure looks less aesthetic than an animal roaming free. But is it better actually worse off than a wild animal? According to this Nature study [1], 84% of mammal species surveyed have a longer lifespan in zoos. Are they also happier? I have no idea, but unlike their uncivilized cousins, they are protected from predators, receive basic medical care (in the West at least) and are not constantly in danger of starvation. Sure, a zebra at the zoo might be bored a lot, but at least it will not get eaten alive by a lion. If you want to learn more about this topic, this essay by Brian Tomasik offers a harrowing introduction [2].
I don’t want to engage in Whataboutism and even if wild animals are suffering much more than is generally assumed, that doesn’t make our meat industry any less morally reprehensible. However, it seemed odd to me that a movie intended on opening eyes seems to have a romanticized view on the topic.