If you haven't seen the film "The Last Lions," you should. I'm just going to come out and admit it: I cried.
The film is technically a nature "movie." Narrated by the guy who voiced Mufasa in The Lion King, the film is composed of some ridiculously awesome lion footage pieced into a feature length revenge narrative. The film is a real emotional roller coaster, with intense violence throughout.
Watching the film made me consider the necessity for violence in nature. For many carnivores, survival means killing another creature every time it is hungry. For life, there must be death. Though humans also slaughter animals for consumption, the raw brutality of nature shown in the film reminded me why humane slaughter is better for our livestock.
Without giving away too much of the plot, the film basically chronicles the life of one female lion "Ma Di Tau," which means "mother of lions," as she struggles to hunt for her cubs after being exiled from her land. The footage is incredible, the story is powerful, and the message is unforgettable.
Violence against animals, whether it is criminal, like the Michael Vick case, or for sport, like hunting, is a very interesting occurrence. We as humans seem to have the need to hurt helpless beings, and it is only acceptable in certain contexts. If someone shoots a buck between the eyes in the forest he is considered a great hunter and is respected, but if he trains a dog to fight and kills it, the same man would be thrown in jail.
ReplyDeleteI think it's true that animal cruelty is horrible, but I think it gets ridiculous when people value an animal's life much more than a human's life. I mean we are slaughtering chickens, pigs, cows, and a variety of other animals for survival everyday. Yet, the slaughtering of those animals are acceptable in this context.
ReplyDeleteBut what I truly find ridiculous is that there are millions of other people in Africa or some other forsaken third world developing (whatever they call it nowadays) that are suffering with far worse conditions. Think about the human rights abuses that occurred in Darfur and Rwanda this past decade and are continuing to happen all around the world. I don't get why a dog fighting incident incited by Michael Vick grabs the attention of the entire nation, but these human rights abuses are ignored. It's a sad world we live in.
I agree with everyone in that there are some terrible things going on around the world when it comes to animal cruelty yet Michael VIck makes headlines. The way we "humanely" kill livestock and other animals for consumption is really terrible. Im not trying to put animal rights above human rights but that doesnt mean we should just ignore the animals. I think our attention should be trained on all types of injustice, not just one.
ReplyDeletereally don't think that there are a significant amount of people who value an animal's life over a human's life. We need to kill certain animals to survive, that is just natural. You cannot forget that we too are animals and need to kill to survive. Yet, we are the only animals in the world who kill other animals for sport.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is absurd that we ignore certain human rights issues, to an extent. However, man on man violence will always occur. We will never live in a Utopia, no matter how much money we donate. We can pay attention to the media and to these issues all we want, but we will never be able to completely solve violence, whether it be man on man or man on animal.