Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

My Name Is Bruce

My Name Is Bruce. Bruce Campbell, 2007.
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Edition screened: Image DVD, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.

Summary: Depicted abuse of a cat.

Details: We hear a cat howling in a hijacked car as it takes off, then see a cat carrier thrown out of the speeding car, 57:44-57:48.

There is a ritual associated with watching a terrible film to which one feels obligated. Rock forward and backward a little while forcing a silent laugh and pounding one leg lightly, slowly with a clenched fist. Try it in sweatpants. This physical act then is verbally reinforced by explaining that the film is, in fact, ‘so bad that it’s good.’ I hope someday to see a chart of how that phenomenon works, along with parallel observations such as ‘so low on gas that it ran forever’ and ‘locked in the meat freezer until he died of sunstroke.’

I absolutely understand loving Bruce Campbell and the adorable characterizations he brought to some iconic films. But his decision to write and direct from an aging so-bad-it’s-good aesthetic brings no ironic humor or nostalgia, only the sadness of a desperate, embarrassed apology.

 My Name Is Bruce does make film history for containing the most offensive Japanese characterization since Mickey Rooney’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.


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