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.

Red Riding Hood (Hardwicke)

Red Riding Hood. Catherine Hardwicke, 2011.
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Edition screened: Warner ‘Alternate Cut’ Blu-ray, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.

Summary: Murder of an innocent wolf, animal sacrifice preparations.

Details:
1) A piglet is chained to a stump as a sacrifice to the werewolf, 1:58-2:18.
2) A rabbit is caught by two children and there is deliberation over which gets to kill it, 3:00-3:38.
3) A wolf (not the werewolf) is gang-hunted and killed. We see its head displayed on a pike 22:18-23:33, and again 27:37-30:10.
4) The werewolf kills a horse by lunging at its throat, 42:58-43:03. Somehow this is not bloody or graphic.

This adaptation is set in the nebulous era of a Renaissance Fair, incorporating historical clichés ranging from the Dark Ages through English settlement of North America with some quotations from the Smurf Village. The town is populated exclusively by well-groomed family units in which the children appear to be 17, the parents 25, and village elders 40 except for the priest who is 20 tops. They all are named things like Valerie and Roxanne and Brent and have really nice hair. Poor Gary Oldman was duped into playing Van Helsing dressed like Rasputin.

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