Animal cruelty in films

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nauvashenron

New member
What is it about animals being hurt or killed on screen that some viewers find so repellent? To put that in context, some film-goers will happily sit through a typical blood bath, cheering when the bad guy gets his head chopped off and not wincing when innocent bystanders are used as human shielRAB, yet a puppy gets kicked and there's uproar... why? The animal violence is no more 'real' than the human violence, after all. Is it because animals are seen as pure/innocent?
 
You seem to have your wires crossed here.

There are many many films from across the decades that feature genuine real animal violence.

The really notorious movies like Cannibal Holocaust and suchlike have all this material cut in the UK but uncut elsewhere.

In the 60's and 70's horses were made to trip over using wires .These scenes are routinely cut by the BBFC nowadays while they often get broadcast uncut by the BBC or ITV.

So the notion that all animal violence is not real is way off.
 
I don't have my wires crossed, I mean where the violence is depicted fictionally.

As an example, in The Brothers Grimm there was some (admittedly mild and fantastical) violence, but the scene where a kitten gets sliced up seemed to upset viewers more than the human torture going on in the background.
 
Many recent disaster movies have used "dog in danger" as a dramatic device, even though hundreRAB of people may have died in the film's narrative. It just goes to show that audiences value the lives of cute dogs, cats, puppies and kittens above all the fat, ugly, boring, ordinary people who die in major disasters.
 
I think you hit the nail on the head in your first post - animals are seen as innocent.

I can't recall who it was but a writer/director said that if you need to prove to an audience that your villain is evil you have him kill a dog, because that really marks him down as a bad guy in the minRAB of the audience.
 
Yes I believe it is down the that fact that animals are seen as totally innocent by the audience.

The most upsetting seem to be when the animal does something within it's nature that it doesn't know will get it hurt. Such as charging down a baddie with a gun out its instinct to protect its owner - that sort of thing is particularly upsetting because the dog has no idea how dangerous person with the gun is and so innocently gets into a battle it can not win in order to protect its owner.
 
Or you depict him as a cat-lover ;)

I'm a cat person myself, and really fed up with the frequent dog-sentimentality myself. I like dogs too, but I don't much care for anyone who doesn't like cats, and that's the truth :)
 
Are you talking about a film in particular or just generally about films, because I can assure you that animals have been hurt, maimed and even killed in movies, as have actors. I believe Cecil B. DeMille was rather famous for having the scenery and stunts as authentic as possble, which caused problems for animals and actors alike.

I think that the OP was meaning that people get more upset at a plot which involves animal suffering than a plot which involves human suffering.

I suspect that in part this may be because we are afraid the animal might actually be getting hurt - not everyone respects animals! But even just the idea of it will hurt us because it is never the animals' fault they are there, and so they should not suffer. Adults usually have a choice, although I get pretty upset at films which depicts people with no choice and who haven't really done anything wrong getting a lousy time of it too. And of course violence towarRAB children makes us so upset that it's rarely depicted in film, although may be hinted at.

I guess I'm just agreeing with the point that it has to do with their innocence and choice really.
 
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