Popeye the Sailor: "Be Kind to Animals"

Originally aired in 1935, this Popeye cartoon offers a glimpse into anti-cruelty efforts of the early 20th century.  The episode begins with Popeye and Olive Oyl bonding as they feed birds in the park.  From their bench, they see Bluto atop his heavily packed cart, refusing water to his horse who was struggling to pull the load and whipping him mercilessly.  Popeye and Olive Oyl intervene, at which point Bluto insults Olive Oyl and throws things at her.   Popeye stands in for the horse's whipping, and eventually finds spinach on the cart.  Upon eating it, he is able to overpower Bluto, who had begun punching the horse in the face.  As Popeye fights Bluto, the horse frees himself and joins in to help.  The cartoon ends with Bluto pulling the cart as the horse has taken the driver's seat, whipping Bluto.

Aside from the obvious message to children that we should be "kind to animals," this cartoon has a few other interesting themes.

First, we see that interacting positively with other animals can be a bonding experience for partners.  Rather than framing empathy for other animals as an especially feminine interest, both men and women are depicted as concerned as a team.

Second, we see that violence against women and violence against other animals are linked.  Bluto is not only hitting an insulting the horse, but he is quick to do the same to Olive Oyl.

Third, we see that eating vegetables is a source of power for Popeye.  Rather than emasculating him, eating spinach gives him the ability to enact his "maleness."  A powerful counter-image to the notion that masculinity and meat-eating are inseparable.

Finally, Nonhuman Animals are not depicted as powerless victims completely at our mercy.  While the horse needed a human ally to help fight off his oppressor, we see that the horse actually liberates himself and fights back.

Thanks to Kim Stallwood for sharing this video on Twitter.

Google Earth Helps Save Stray Dog

Animal advocates have long been using the technology of the day to help communicate their message about animals to the public. Television, radio, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are all useful devices to gain attention to animals in need.

But this video shows something else; how Google Earth was used to bring awareness to the plight of a stray dog, later named Sonya, who had been living on the streets for close to a decade. Thanks to that technology, and the work of the rescuer featured in the video below and the group Hope For Paws, Sonya got off the streets and was given a chance at a safe, loving second life.

Explorers Race to the Poles, Animals Lose

Race to the Poles is an American documentary produced for Discovery Channel in 2000.  The film follows the international competition between America, Britain, Norway, and other countries keen on being the first to plant their flag.  Typical of many historical stories told from a Western perspective, the experiences of white males take precedence, while vulnerable populations are often relegated to the sidelines or ignored altogether.

Arctic exploration involved a great deal of heroism as men scrambled for fame and glory.  Much of their successes (and near successes--it took countless attempts before the poles were finally reached) were heavily dependent upon the native population that assisted them.  It is doubtful as to whether the European and American explorers were welcome in the first place, as Inuits, their land, and their waters have been heavily exploited by outsiders over the centuries.  Explorers often adopted a paternalistic attitude toward them.  It is known that Commander Peary, American explorer in the North Pole, took a 14 year old Inuit girl as a "mistress" (or what some might call a sex slave).  Many other polar explorers also sexually exploited native women and abandoned the resulting children.

Image from Peary's Nearest the Pole
Akatingwah, mistress of Perry's partner Matthew Henson

The exploitation of Nonhuman Animals was also central to the explorations.  Hundreds of dogs were transported by ship and pushed across hundreds of miles of ice in sub-zero weather.  Peary commented:  "Other dogs may work as well or travel as fast and far when fully fed; but there is no dog in the world that can work so long in the lowest temperatures on practically nothing to eat."  Many were run to death.  Others might be set free to "fend for themselves" (i.e. die) in the icy abyss.  Weak dogs were sometimes killed to be cannibalized by their languishing companions.

From Peary's The North Pole

Ponies, too, were pulled into the race.  British explorer Captain Robert Scott brought several Nordic ponies who were not able to withstand the temperatures and had difficulty walking in the snow.  Some starved to death, but Scott reports shooting the rest.

Image from University of Cambridge Polar Museum

Free-living animals like muskox, seals, narwhals, deer, and walruses also met gruesome ends as adventurers attempted the poles again and again and ran low on food supplies.  Still more were killed as the adventurers waited in boats for months for optimal traveling times.  An explorer describes a walrus hunt:

Mac had a Winchester automatic rifle, and he got off five shots so fast that before the first one left the muzzle the other four were chasing it. He dropped a large bull, which gave a convulsive flop and rolled into the water with a splash. I hit a couple, and with hoarse grunts of pain and fury they all wriggled off the ice and dived out of sight. The boat was hurried to within five yards of Mac's bull, and an Eskimo hurled a harpoon, hit the large bull, and threw overboard the sealskin float. At this stage of the game about forty other walruses, that had been feeding below, came up to the surface to see what the noise was about, spitting the clam shells out of their mouths and snorting. The water was alive with the brutes, and many of them were so close to us that we could hit them with the oars. A harpoon was driven into another by a corking throw [ . . . ]

- The North Pole

Photo from Bowdoin College Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum

Indeed, the entire expedition was thoroughly dependent upon the life and death of other animals.  The hair and skin of Nonhuman Animals often comprised their clothing.  Countless Nonhuman Animals were killed and rendered, potted, and otherwise preserved for the supplies picked up in nearby ports or donated by advertisers sponsoring the expeditions.

Image from The Ohio State University Archives
Frederick A. Cook Society Collection

Nonhuman Animal flesh stored in Scott's South Pole post
Image from Terra Nova

When Children Choose Vegetarianism

This video went viral last week and for good reason. In it, a young Brazilian boy named Luiz Antonio, when faced with a plate of octopus, questions why we eat animals who then have to die for us. He says, "I don't like that they die; I like that they stay standing up."  His mother has no adequate response for him, when faced with his many concerns. Ultimately she tells him that he doesn't have to eat the octopus and that "we're not going to eat it anymore."

Children often choose not to eat meat, and must be taught, or forced, to eat it. In fact, a quick perusal of parenting books and websites makes it clear that one of the most common food-related issues that parents have is the problem of making their children eat meat. Parenting "experts" treat this "problem" as one of children being picky or going through a phase, and parents are encouraged to model "proper" behavior or to disguise the meat in other kinds of foods in order to get their kids to learn to enjoy it. The question, then, is how many children are making a moral choice to abstain from eating meat?

For the most part, scholars have questioned whether children as young as Luiz even have the cognitive skills to make a moral statement like Luiz makes in the video: "When we eat animals, they die!...I don't like that they die."  But a 2009 study by Karen M. Hussar and Paul L. Harris (Children Who Choose Not to Eat Meat: A Study of Early Moral Decision-making)  showed that very young children like Luiz do in fact stop eating meat for moral reasons. In other words, it's not that they are picky or going through a phase. They, or at least some of them, have made a conscious choice on moral grounds.

One has to wonder how many children, if they had parents who did not cajole, manipulate, or force them into eating meat, would end up as vegetarians?

Interspecies Love and Grief

There are countless videos and images on the Internet that can be used in the classroom that demonstrate that non-human animals not only have the capacity for love but can share that love with animals of other species. But does that love continue after their friend or beloved has died?

Clearly it does. Ethologists have long demonstrated the capacity of non-human animals to grieve, and countless examples exist of animals who mourn their young, their friends, and other animals with whom they have bonded, including of course their human friends.

In this heartbreaking video from 2012, Bella the dog mourns the death of Beavis, her beaver friend, who died just that morning. It is such a simple demonstration of love and loss that it's difficult to imagine a counterargument that posits any other explanation for Bella's behavior.