AOW 12

"Meat is Murder!"

The Human Meat Protest

Peta

Peta is the largest animal rights organization in the world, containing over 3 million members. Working through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and most famously protest campaigns, their influence has gone from the streets into the classrooms of countless schools throughout America.

The Campaign

 

PETA's innovative campaign was found in countless major cities across the United States a number of years ago. Featuring living activists in styrofoam and plastic containers, simulating those you would buy in the grocery store, they tried to make a point that all animals are made of flesh, blood, and bones and have the same range of senses and emotions that we do. They argued that in eating meat, you are eating a corpse.

Analysis

A large part of the success that lies in Peta's campaign is how they MAKE their audience. Every pedestrian walking on these corpse lines streets is forced to look upon the gruesom picture that the ad has set up. The immediate reaction upon seeing these bodies would be revulsion, but also recognition. Everyday people walk into the grocery store to buy meat from the exact same packages without giving it a thought, and from that approach the ad also instills a sense of guilt. We look upon the ideas of murder and cannibalism with disgust, and Peta makes the point that eating meat is hardly any different. While the method in which they do this is a little over the top, if it interests enough people to look onto their website and learn about the real effects of eating meat, they could potentially gather a huge group of supporters. As their purpose is to at the very least educate the public and bring awareness about the cruelty of carnivorism, the ad not only fulfills it but does so in an unforgettable way.

For those that read the large stickers, placed in the middle of the "corpse's" body, logos plays its first major role. Behind the highly emotional and striking face of the campaign lies statistics, such as those on the image to the left. In the context of busy traffic filled and pedestrian lined streets, it serves as a significant wake up call for anyone those who had never considered the enormity of their actions, including myself.