“No Animals Were Harmed”

Since the beginning of cinema, animals are involved in movies. You may have seen the “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie” notice in the end. Is it really the case?

Unfortunately, since animals are involve in the making of movies, some are badly hurt, or even worst, killed. This is why you should be careful about the films that you encourage by watching them at cinema or buying the DVD.

The Early 1900’s

Of course, when we think about harmed animals in movies, we think it happened long time ago. In the early 1900’s, a lot of movie animal were killed will filming movies. Some were shot dead; some others drowned or were electrocuted.

One of the most known cases of animal abuse in a movie is Electrocuting An Elephant from Thomas Edison. The title says it all; Toopsy, a circus elephant, is electrocuted in the movie. People at the circus noticed that she was attacking more people after her trainer tried to feed her with lit cigarette, so they executed her.  

You can now watch the sad movie on internet. The quality is not good, but it is not necessarily easy to watch.

Since then, plenty of movies like Ben-Hur (1925), Land Without Bread (1933) Stagecoach (1939) and Jesse James (1939) harmed animals. Sadly, the abuse was not over with those movies.

And now?

As we saw, it happened at some occasions in the early years of cinema and television. You may think those behaviors are behind us. It is not exactly the case. Not only animals were harmed badly in some movies of the 90’s, but even this year, in 2012. We may think that human evolved enough to not make movie animals suffer, but apparently not.

When we are thinking about animal abuse in movie, we certainly not think about child movies. According to Yahoo! Movies, Snow Buddies, a movie from Dysney released in 2008, was lethal not only for one puppy, but five. The production used too young puppies for the movies and they died from contracting parvovirus.

The case of The Hobbit

The future blockbuster movie The Hobbit is pointed by some organizations. During the shooting of the film, many animals have died. Horses, chickens, sheep and goat died from injuries. PETA is claiming they will protest during the premiere to report the bad treatment. The organization claimed director Peter Jackson should have use animated animals instead of hurting real ones on the set.

What can you do?

When you are going watch a film or a TV show, make sure that no animals were harmed for real. You can visit the website of the American Humane Association. The group rates every movie that it is allowed on set. You can find those rates on the website and get prepare to be surprise by some films.