"Earthlings"

-written and directed by shaun monson
2005
We do not deserve to live.
We do not deserve to live.
We do not deserve to live.
Please be over.
Please be over.
Please be over.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
By and large, these were the only words i was able to think or whisper during my viewing of this documentary. The only other coherent thought i recall is, "If anyone can watch this film and not stop eating other animals, i give them my complete blessing."
I know that any words i might add are pale shadows of this film's impact. Humyns are visual creatures, and this is an unrelenting onslaught. To not provide a single moment of reprieve to catch one's breath is an artistic choice, and one that i cannot begrudge. The viewer's suffering, while profound, can never be anything but a holiday jaunt compared to the incomprehensible horror that uncountable billions, even trillions, of other animals suffer at our hands...which is precisely the artistic point, i suppose. The music feels a bit gratuitously manipulative in the first five minutes, but get over it.
There's nothing in this film i hadn't already known. The only reason i subjected myself to a full viewing, when the sane response would have been to run far away, was so i could assess it for you.
Of course, "full viewing" is an exaggeration. Much of the time i was averting my eyes, or unable to see through my tears...at one point i took to watching the images in the reflection on my window, seeking only escape.
Is it fair to say that all people can be divided into two groups - those who have seen this, and those who haven't?
(with an interesting sub-divide...those who get through it, and those who don't)
The film starts by drawing parallels between slavery/racism, the dehumynization of wimyn, and our treatment of other animals. The questions of sentience and comparable suffering are addressed. The stages of denial (ridicule, violent opposition, and acceptance) are outlined. It finally moves beyond the obvious topics of food animals and the pet industry, into the worlds of fashion and entertainment. Because these last images are unexpected, they are perhaps the most devastating and damning.
This film doesn't (but perhaps ought) raise the question of what the word "desensitization" means. It's a concept that most people with an average education are at least briefly exposed to, but what does it truly mean? I have long fancied that my struggles with the world, and my descent into mild depression and PTSD, simply reflect my own self-directed resensitization. But i'm beginning to suspect that even academia doesn't fully understand this aspect of current humyn socialization. I searched for a comprehensive book on the subject, and found nothing.
Much of the history of our intellectual relationship to other animals has been the search for what makes us "unique". That pursuit, however, could be described as an abuser losing one crutch of denial after another, as we've realized that other animals embody tool-making, self-awareness, humor, death-awareness, language, art, and culture. The one bastion of singularity remaining, the notion that we're the only creature to project our lives into some abstract future, may soon fall as well. Which leaves me wondering whether the only unique facet of humynity is the ability to blind ourselves not simply to the suffering of others (which all animals do in a survival-based, competitive world), but also blind ourselves to OUR OWN suffering. This may ultimately be the only meaningful definition of humynity, and the key to understanding how we could have become the destroyer of all life, including ourselves.

P.S. It was funny to observe my own rush into escapist behavior immediately after my viewing...there was lots of chocolate and Monty Python involved.