"those [slaughterhouse] chickens, at least, gave their lives to be eaten"
I don't care where your from - chickens are definitely no martyrs. However noble a creature they may be, I don't think they "gave" anything. Assuming slaughterhouse chickens had been asked if they could give "their lives to be eaten", and assuming they could respond, I suspect their stoic plumage might flutter ever so slightly. Otherwise we might have to start erecting memorials for all the veteran slaughterhouse chickens who valiantly "gave their lives".
"[food production] is a big, virtually unstoppable machine. It doesn't justify the treatment of these particular chickens for something that is, essentially, a waste of everyone's time."
Assumption 1) Food production is beyond reproach and cannot be stopped because of its integration in our lumbering society (I agree with you on this). John Water's isn't, and can be (i disagree with your double standards on this - why excuse one and condemn the other?).
Assumption 2) The ends justify the means. Because churning battery hens through slaughterhouses is for eating, which is, presumably, a biological necessity - it serves a purpose and is ultimately justified. Wheras, churning chickens through depraved sexual acts for purpose scatological humor, is not - it is "a waste of everyone's time".
"I guarantee that these chickens were not eaten"
What difference does it make if they were eaten or not? I thought we were talking about man's callous mistreatment of animals.
"Waters could've easily just used fake chickens, or fake blood. My issue is that this scene could have been done without cruelty."
Let me clarify - I agree that it is cruel and he should have used fake chickens and blood. But it is no more cruel than the acts man constantly inflicts upon other animals, and on one another everyday. He makes his point BECAUSE he chose to use actual chickens - to our very core we feel that cruelty can be justified in certain instances. Our instant reaction is to disprove of what we see - these unconscious actions reveals much about our values. Particularly our double standards. It's a bit of a Patrick Bateman/American Psycho manifesto - this scene could not exist without society to provide the context. He embodies this sickness and produced the scene - he does not try to justify it.
Waters "not solving it"
The problem CAN'T be solved, remember? Food production is beyond reproach and cannot be stopped because of its integration in our lumbering society.
"All Waters has really done by showing this scene is... possibly turn some people (who may be predisposed to such behaviour anyway) on to the practice."
Films should have a sound morality to avoid leading wayward (or even previous uncorrupted) souls astray.
If it wasn't for cinema, we wouldn't have columbine. We wouldn't have the torture of inmates at prisons in [insert country here]. We wouldn't Josef Fritzl. We wouldn't have hitler or stalin. We wouldn't have Jack the Ripper. Oh... wait. Thats right.
I could almost put everything else you have said down to difference of opinion, but this is a very naive statement. Essentially good people can be corrupted upon viewing things of disgust? If this was the case, I think everyone would be done for upon walking down any drinking district on a friday night and witnessing the debauchery.
"I do admit the inherent "hypocrisy" of [my statement] statement"
perhaps you should reconsider.
[note: I am a carnivore. I particularly like pork (one the most poorly treated animals). All criticism of meat production is for the purpose of pointing out hypocrisy and double standards - including my own. THANK YOU]
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