Anjelica Huston to Hollywood: No More Monkey Business
Source: http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11874
Oscar Winner Stars in Heartfelt Role in PETA Video About Cruelty to Great Apes Used in Film and Television
For Immediate Release: August 27, 2008
Contact: Michael McGraw 757-622-7382
Los Angeles — “Having worked with actors for many years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into show business. But the next time that you see a chimpanzee in a movie, on TV, or in an ad, chances are, that’s exactly what happened.” So says Academy Award-winning actor Anjelica Huston in a hard-hitting new video that she hosted for PETA, in which she exposes a type of abuse that tears at her heart: the use and abuse of young chimpanzees and orangutans by the entertainment industry.
In the video–which PETA is sending on her behalf to Hollywood producers and directors and to advertising agencies along with a plea to end all use of great apes–Huston explains, “It’s a sad story that starts when the animals are babies, when they are torn away from their mothers and forced to depend upon human trainers. Great ape mothers are fiercely protective of their newborns, which means that they must be tricked, sedated, or forcibly restrained when their infants are pulled from their arms. This cruel practice leaves lifelong emotional scars on both the mothers–who go into a deep depression–and the babies.”
Huston goes on to describe how young animals are beaten with fists and kicked in the head during terrifying training sessions. Trainers have also used sawed-off pool cues and electric shocks to make young animals obey and perform meaningless and confusing tricks on the set over and over again for long hours at a time. By age 8, young chimpanzees and orangutans used in the entertainment industry have grown too strong to be handled, and PETA has found them discarded–often at dismal roadside zoos or filthy pseudo-sanctuaries. There, they can languish for decades–chimpanzees can live to age 60–in barren cages or dank, barren concrete cells with nothing to do and no companionship.
Reports of abuse continue to plague Hollywood productions that use great apes. In the filming of this year’s box office bomb Speed Racer, a young chimpanzee was hit on the set. PETA is asking the entertainment industry to use only computer-generated imagery (CGI) or animatronics when scripts call for animals.
For more information and to view Huston’s video, please visit NoMoreMonkeyBusiness.com.
