CHAPEL HILL -- Adele walked off with the trophies, but it was Willie Nelson's haunting cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist" that generated post-Grammy buzz.
In 2 minutes and 19 seconds, the animated commercial shows the evolution of factory farming - cows and pigs removed from the pasture to warehouse stalls so small the animals can't even turn around. Midway through, the farmer stops, and as Nelson sings "I'm going back to the start," he breaks down the warehouse walls and returns the animals to the grass, the sunshine and fresh air.
All brought to you by the Chipotle restaurant chain and viewed nearly 5.5 million times on YouTube.
Wayne Pacelle, the 46-year old president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, talked about the commercial in an interview before appearances in the Triangle this week to promote his new book, "The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend them."
Q: In the context of the bond between humans and animals, hasn't the bond historically been utilitarian? We've had animals because they've served our purposes?
"Clearly there's been a utilitarian side, going back to hunting and gathering to domestication and the uses of animals for food and fiber. At the same time, there's been an ethic built into many of those uses and behaviors. If you look at tribal communities today in the Amazon or in New Guinea there are apologies to the animals; there are rituals of atonement. There's a sense of being decent to the animal because the animal gave its life to the hunter. ... Even with animal husbandry there was a relationship of custodianship: a tending to the flock. The presumption was the animals were going to have one bad day, the day of slaughter, and the rest of their life in the run up to the slaughter was OK and it was one that was liveable."
Q: But throughout history there has been wholesale slaughter of animals, and not just for food. The buffalo were shot from trains. If there is an innate bond or instinctual bond, how do you explain the innate cruelty?
"We colonized North America as we developed new technologies, whether it was the repeating firearm or the railroad and trains. We had this attitude of domination, and the bond was subverted to these larger opportunities for exploitation. You can see the growth of the conservation movement in the second half of the 19th century, and also the humane movement, as a response to this wanton destruction of wildlife. The ASPCA was formed in 1866. People saw (horses) being overworked, they saw them being beaten, they saw them overloaded, and there was a sympathetic response. Back to Chipotle, this kind of singular focus on production and cost drove the industrial agriculture sector to place (animals) in crates barely larger than their bodies. Now, again, we're seeing a reaction against this extreme and abusive factory-farming model. The reason Chipotle can take an ad on prime-time television and condemn factory farming is (because) your average American doesn't think it's right to confine a sow in a cage that doesn't allow her to move."
Q: Was there a single incident that prompted this book?
"No. Part of my thesis is there's a bond built into every one of us. It's found in almost every child, in their natural curiosity and affection for animals. It can be drummed out of people, or it can be quashed. But in so many people it remains a powerful force. I've seen seals in Atlantic Canada just before or during the hunt, I've been involved in cockfighting raids, I've been to puppy mills, I've been to slaughterhouses. I thought it was time for me to roll it all up and to ask the public to think through our relationship with animals."
