Irish national media outlet RTE recently reported that a bull had escaped confinement and ran into a local supermarket in County Mayo.
Looking for all the world like a staged TV comedy, there is one scene in which someone runs down a aisle toward the CCTV camera, abruptly slides to a halt, and retreats as the bull makes his escape.
A little before this, a store butcher, dressed in traditional uniform, meekly approaches an area where the bull has been seen. The butcher, no doubt to be seen daily happily hacking into the bodies of already-dead cows and bulls, appears less than confident or brave in a situation in which one of his victims appears alive and well and ready for action.
Of course, the Irish Independent's coverage of the incident was as light-hearted as one would expect in a society deeply saturated in speciesist norms and values. For example, the report on the incident first points out that the bull was regretfully and dangerously "out-of-control", since we expect that our walking meat should always be subject to human superintendence.
The animal had escaped the "clutches" of "its"[1] owner, we are told, and - heaven be praised - no-one (read no human) was injured. At no point does the report even begin to try to understand the event from the point of view of the eventually recaptured bull. Such a thing would surely take us far too deeply into thinking about human-nonhuman relations than is healthy in a speciesist society.
[1] At least the quoted store owner, John Cummins, recognised the gendered nature of nonhuman animals are referred to the bull as "he".
2 comments:
Incidents like this put me in such a bad mood...a year ago our local TV station aired footage of college students playing baseball with a bunch of terrified bats that were trapped in the dorms. It was aired as a hilarious fluke. It sickened me. How it could be funny to bash little animals to death with a baseball bat is mind boggling. And then to air it on TV and have the anchors laughing, too? My letters to the station got no reply of course!
Not relevant to the incident with the baseball bats, perhaps, but the news coverage - especially in that "and finally..." spot which we understand to be a humorous piece - can be regarded as one of Jim Mason's 'rituals of dominionism' as outlined in his excellent book, An Unnatural Order.
Thanks for the comment.
RY
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