11/26 Chicken Run
Thanksgiving at our house started with Meals on Wheels deliveries and eased into a full day movie marathon. We continued with our Hitchcock addiction and added a few other movies for a dose of sanity.
One of the non-Hitchcock movies we watched was Chicken Run from Dreamworks. It is an animated movie set on a chicken farm in England in the 1950’s. The story surrounds a wiley group of chickens that live in constant terror awaiting their turn on the chopping block. Their situation turns significantly more dire when the small time farm introduces huge scale machinery (think factory farm production) to turn all of the chickens into pot pies in one fell swoop.
The renegade of the group, Ginger is a dreamer who is determined to get them all out of that coop or die trying.
So as we are watching this “G” rated cartoon I realize that I am sobbing. Big, monsoon like, heart breaking tears. The hens are so humanized in this movie (they wear cute hats and jewelry and have beautiful British accents, and express fear , sadness and joy like real hens do) that it reaches in to the darkest part of your mind where you know that these things happen to animals with feelings. We choose to forget about this or not think about it because it is too horrible to accept. This movie profoundly taps into the premise ” if slaughter houses had glass walls, then everyone would be vegetarian.”
I found this reaction to the movie very interesting because when we watched “Glass Walls” with Paul McCartney, which epitomizes the above premise, Sandy and I both had very different reactions. Sandy was paralyzed by the images and almost felt as though they were not real. As I watched the images on the screen they were so horrifying to me that they were seared into my brain.
So, along comes the animated Chicken Run and under the guise of a family movie, it successfully sneaks (or shouts if you are paying attention) this message without the terrifying images in documentaries like Glass Walls. It is expertly created and I love this soft sell of a painful message, animals have feelings, even chickens. It easily spoke to Sandy and me and I imagine to many others as well.
Roger Ebert gives this flick “two thumbs up” and I totally agree. If you haven’t seen the movie already, here is a trailer to Chicken Run.
Have a compassionate day.
Tags: Chicken Run, compassionate eating, Dreamworks, Glass Walls, going veg, movie review, Paul McCartney, trying vegan, trying vegetarian, vegan, vegan wannabe
November 26th, 2010 at 8:40 am
I definitely agree. Other children’s films with animal protagonists that make me cry are Charlotte’s Web and Babe. I think these stories work because there’s something really simple and easy to identify with about these animals’ plight. You identify with the non-human protagonists and bond with them more easily than with the horrific images of factory farm victims, which can just be too overpowering and confronting to process. Sorry for the lengthy comment! I just find it really interesting.
November 26th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Christabel,
You are so right and I appreciate your comment very much. Thank you for sharing. It was like it tapped into a very base or raw feeling of right and wrong before we created so many filters or had the great forgetting of how our food is really produced.
November 27th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I am glad to hear that there are still cartoons with good messages out there. I know that what I read as a child had an huge impact on my becoming a vegetarian and animal rescuer as an adult- I read Charlotte’s Web in elementary, James Herriot’s memoirs in middle school, and The Jungle in high school. By the time I reached my senior year I was convinced. Thanks for sharing this about Chicken Run, it reminds us of how much children can be influenced by what they read and watch, this time for the better.
November 27th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I vaguely remember hearing that Chicken Run was pretty upsetting back when it came out, so I never saw it because I’m already a vegan and stuff like that really gets to me. Thanks for the review and for the great giveaway!
November 27th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
This sounds like a movie I’ll have my nieces watch once they’re old enough to understand it
November 29th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
November 29th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
I love movie marathons, kudos for doing meal deliveries. I love hearing about things like that, makes me feel all warm and cosy inside.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Thank you Nik. Beautifully shared.