Hey Alex! Good to hear from you and your project.

Going backwards, vegan food is a great idea! The video shows the "why"; your food shows the "how". I think that some further information, in the form of leaflets, could be very useful to get the message across. It gives people something to think about after the shock, which is when many questions may arise (and when we might not be close to answer). I love the Peaceful Prairie leaflets, especially the ones about "dairy". Very touching and informative. Plus, Earthlings doesn't really get into "dairy production" much, so I think it is important to highlight it, along with "egg production". Check PPS leaflets!
GF's pamphlet is good too. Not very emotive, but good for the mind.
You could write a little something also, if you feel like it.

Going last has its cons and pros.

(Con): Unless nobody can leave the room before everybody has presented their work, some people might, as DG wrote, be tired and wanting to leave. Promoting in advance your project AND the food (people always want food) might help with people staying.

(Pro): People will go home thinking about the last thing they watched. Plus, it will be perfect to introduce the food right afterwards, and have the time to do some informal chatting (these are usually very interesting after a screening) and distribute literature. Not going last would go against this.

Now, to the video! I don't like the idea of showing "meet your meat" instead. Not because it's PeTA's, but because, well, it focuses only on "meat"! And only on terrestrial animals!

Something to add, the "fishes sentience" scene that's in the "entertainment" part. In the "food" section, they talk about fishes, but mainly about the environmental aspect of their mass murder. Not to mention the crappiest part of Earthlings, where they talk about "seafood" and just talk about how "unhealthy" it is to eat them!


Anyway. Your point about whaling it's very reasonable. What about keeping the dolphins' scenes, and cutting out the whaling? It still addresses your point (showing how killing and eating some animals it's "normal" in some parts of the world, while others consider it "barbaric" ) and you get a few minutes less. [Although the dolphins part also has a "welfarist" message... :angry: ... but let's leave that for now :laugh: ]

Of course, all of this depends on how the spoken message of Earthlings works out with the "cutting".

I like the introduction and conclusion too!! I think they are really strong and, as you said, inspirational.
What about having 2 projects and showing either depending on how the public looks like? If you see them too tired and wanting to leave, you could show the "food" part only (with the fishes sentience and whaling added), and make your own introduction and conclusion(speciesism relationship with other forms of discrimination, the importance of sentience, other animals as property, etc ) If not, then go all the way with the introduction and conclusion from Earthlings?

Am I asking too much? Hehe.

Your speech it's very important too. Sometimes people don't pay much attention to the message with that kind of images in the screen.

Lending and/or selling Earthlings it's a good idea. If you don't have any copies, I would suggest to provide this website's link and/or tell people that they can watch the whole movie online (I know, I know, we've discussed this before, but I still think it's OK to do so). Watching the whole movie really has a higher impact, and I suppose many of your fellow students don't even have the budget to pay the price of an original movie.

That's about it. All the best!

Samuel.

P.S.: What about holding a full-screening at your college after? Just asking

Thanks for the reply guys, it must have been so tough for Shaun to figure out what to include in the earthlings final cut. I've been listening to his commentary on the DVD (minus the image) and its good to hear the backstory/making of process he went through (from what I heard, he sounds kind of more Rights inclined, rather than welfarist)

About the video, perhaps ommiting the whaling would be good as you guys suggested would be best for this group. Its really a varied class, we've got about 20 people in the class ages ranging from 17 to 50-ish. Made up of pretty much just females, in fact there is only five males including myself(teacher is male). So the audience in mainly female. The thing is about 2 weeks ago, when I brought up the topic that I was doing to my teacher, the 50 yr old woman overheard the topic I was doing, and said that she could understand why i didn't eat meat, but she didn't see anything wrong with eggs or dairy, and proudly pronounced her consumer purchasing of 'free range' eggs (yeah, I know) Soon after this, after some other people gathered around the 'vegan freak' my painting teacher was having a go at how she knows vegans who are very sick, and all the rest of the negative things about it, and questions like where do you get your protein from etc etc (which just comes to show, that the people who badmouth veganism probably haven't read a thing about any of it)Sorry, I'm rantiing now, but yeah, from that encounter, i sort of got the feeling that people will quickly pounce to the 'eggs and dairy are humane' outlook. I've watched Meet your meat (it was instrumental in me going vegetarian actually) but for this occasion i have reservations about using that video (bit too meat oriented)

The teacher has said that I can hand out literature for the presentation so, theres a lot of flexibility it seems, which is good.

L-I I'm on the same page as you about the why and how about exploitation and veganism (well put) thats what I had in mind, hopefully the food will partly do the trick. Thanks for referring me to Peaceful Prarie, their leaflets are perfect to complement the video. I did some leaftletting yesterday using Vegan Outreach's stuff ,I know, not the best lit, but yeah i was going to use their stuff for the project aswell along with GF's pamphlet. I'll use Peaceful Prairies leaflets but, VO pamphlet has a benefit in the form of how many pictures they pack in one booklet. i dont know, should I include VO lit or just leave it?

I was also disappointed with the seafood section in how it didn't discuss sentience and suffering of the fish. I thought that was all earthlings covered about fish, completely forgot about the entertainment part. Thanks L-I, I will be sure to include that in.

The dolphin part of earthlings is as bad as any part of the film for me, but for most people its gonna be a real shock. I'm just worried that as soon as people see that part they'll walk away straight away. Breaking it down into two parts like you suggested Samuel is a good idea, its just that wouldn't that sort of interrupt the flow of the whole thing. If I included that second part after the Joaquin's conclusion, then it wouldn't flow aswell, no?

I would prefer not to do any voice over work or talking myself in relation to the video, and just let it speak for itself more. And I think adding in the intro, effectively illustrates speciecism, sexism and racism well, and provides a good setup for the audience to look at animals differently, the intro has a power that seems to draw audiences to sit a watch just (at least thats the effect it had on me whilst browsing YouTube), so I think it should stay. The conclusion is really great aswell, because it emphasizes the need for changing our thinking towards non-human animals, our culture, habits and traditions (which ties in well with the topic or 'rituals and culture' that we are doing) plus it gives you that inspirational feeling of seeing a reality/truth, and that change is in the choices you make. Well, i know this post is abit disjointed, sort of in a rush, but anyways, more feedback, or comments please. Already the stuff you guys have suggested has been helpful!

Thanks guys

Alex

First off, thanks DG for making the Sulking Page.
Now I shall begin my sulking.

Vegan. Why do people hate that word SO much? Why do people look at me like I have a second head EVERY time I say the word "vegan". Is there some evil thing about it that I'm not aware of? Does it personally scar every human to know that the idea of veganism exists? Of course not. So then what is the big deal? Just this past week I've heard comments like "Wait...who's [Edo]? Oh. She's the vegetarian chick." it was said in a way that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Today I heard numerous vegetarian jokes that were absolutely unnecessary and mean.

I just can't understand why, A, people have such hatred towards vegans and vegetarians, and B, why they can't respect the fact that I made the decision to be vegetarian? I don't go around saying "You eat meat? That's lame! What's wrong with you?! I hate you!" I mean obviously people don't say that to me but you know what I'm getting at. I don't understand why some people are open to new things and experiences but then when someone mentions "vegan" they shut it out completely. The reason I became vegetarian was because I wanted to know. I was curious. I knew the meat I saw at the store didn't just appear there by itself. Don't people wonder about that kind of thing? Even if they think it's fine and no harm came to an animal in the process, if someone told them "no actually you're wrong" why wouldn't they be curious then?

Maybe I'm not making any sense. I guess that's what sulking pages are for.

Thanks for that.

"Vegan. Why do people hate that word SO much?"

"I don't understand why some people are open to new things and experiences but then when someone mentions "vegan" they shut it out completely."

Hi, Edo

In short, without the fluff, the reason is that when you say "I'm a vegan", most people hear "I don't murder or eat animals."

That's pretty much the sum of it. You don't have to raise the moral question, it's just there, an invisible ethical side effect of your statement. People cannot hear your words without instantly having a little internal dialogue with themselves.

Why is she vegan? - because she doesn't believe in killing animals.

Why doesn't she believe in killing animals? - because it's apathetic and selfish, you giant dork. It's wrong.

Oh shit, then she's pointing out that I'm a killer.

DEFENSE, GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!!!

Period.

It's just like in the playground, someone chooses to think outside the square and bring morals into the superficial, brainwashed equation and the cool kids gang together and monkey stomp the poor, non conformist, ethical goon into the rubber pavement. They fear you because you make them think, you make them accountable for their actions. You raise a big fat mirror to their faces.

And most people don't like their reflection, nope.

Sorry, I haven't had my tact pill today.

That's about it Dee! Nothing much more to add to that.

Having a vegan in the room can be intimidating. What to do with the vegan in the room? How can I make myself feel more comfortable about my confronted morals? Let's make fun of her! Put downs under the guise of jokes are the best way to puff ourselves back up again.

That's one thing. ANother thing is that because of people's beliefs about animal consumption like that's it's natural, we're part of the food chain, animal suffering and death is necessary for our food (lions do it), etc, because of all this, they may think the vegan is confused, emotionally weak, naive, irrational, etc. Try another word, instead of saying "Oh yeah, she's a vegan", try "Oh yeah, she's a Mormon," amongst a group of science students, or "She's a pro-choice supporter," amongst a group of right wing evangelicals, or "She's an anti-war peace activist" to the same group. But to us vegans on the receiving end of quick casual comments, they may as well be saying "Yeah, she's a nigger," or "That girl? Mmm, yeah she's a dyke." It's rude and it's discriminatory. But like Gary Francione says, our mild discomforts pale in comparison to the life of the farm animals. It's not about us. The animals go thru far worse.

Having said all that. Feel free to sook, sulk and b itch all you like, right here. You don't have to be strong, or bite your tongue, or pretend on this forum! HUG. DG