Good Morning Facebook Friends, As we discussed last night, the cinema, from cartoons to television to movies on the big screen have had quite an impact on what people believe about animals as well as how they feel about them. Let’s start today by reminding ourselves, and hopefully others, that cinema is made for entertaining, not really for educating and because of this, they don’t always think of the long term ramifications of what they are showing. Take for instance the movie The Birds. Oh how often I wish this movie had never been made! I cannot count the number of times people have walked up as I was holding Grip (African raven) or one of our crows and said something to the effect, and sometimes said these exact words, “oh, those birds are evil, they attack people in flocks”. Well, yes, in that movie and a few others, they did, but those birds were all either not real or trained! In real life, birds are not “out to get” humans (not that maybe they shouldn’t be, given what we do to them and their environment, but they do not). The director of the movie The Birds was actually an avid bird watcher and I’m sure would not be thrilled if he knew the kind of trouble that he’d caused these species with his silly movie. As for the black birds in the movie, some were trained crows who were going to the bait that was lathered on the actors; ground meat and anchovies were smeared on their hands. The birds that attacked the children in the bus were merely puppets. And the seagulls who attacked Miss Hedren in the attic were actually attached to her with rubber bands (can you imagine how scary that was for them both?). Whether you like the movie or not (for me, it isn’t really my kind of movie anyway), it is a classic, but it was meant to simply entertain, to scare people, it was not meant to vilify every black bird and seagull out there. Let’s try to remember the purpose in cinema and that these things are fiction, not education and please, let’s stop blaming animals for something that some writer or director dreamt up to entertain and make money! Crows and ravens are some of the smartest birds on the planet, they are amazing and entertaining and they deserve our respect and admiration. It’s ok if you personally don’t admire them, but please, don’t vilify them based on fiction. Have a beautiful day all!
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:44:24 +0000
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