Month: October 2014 (Page 3 of 4)

I chose a peculiar image to look at for this blog post. The image is a frame of a cow with different sections outlined saying things like “no crowding” or “no antibiotics.” This is the wrapping the company whole foods uses for their ground beef. The cow shown has the outline of an actual cow one would use for beef, but it is nothing more than an outline and very distant from the Americanized cow one may think of. I will use Berger’s notion of animals of the mind and Foer’s ideas from Eating Animals to analyze this picture.

Whole foods isn’t trying to anthropomorphize this cow; it is not one of those cows one might see on television that talks about how happy they are and happy cows make better cheese. Then again, they are not trying to go around the fact that they indeed use this cow to sell its beef.  Berger states “The animals of the mind, instead of being dispersed, have been co-opted into other categories so that the category animal has lost its central importance.” (Berger 15). What was once a Cow, is no longer viewed as a cow.  According to Foer, 98% of cows are raised in crowded places without the ability to move. Cows in America were once treated as respected farm animals, living in a nice barn. In India, cows are sacred. They are now commodities, not Cow.

Although Whole Foods is famous for their organic food and well raised animals, Foer would have some things to say about that. Foer points out, all these terms have very loose definitions and very often mean little. None of these terms are actually defined and companies abuse them. More importantly, Foer talks about the antibiotics companies use to keep the meat safe and grow larger. This caused Humans to become so resistant to medicinal antibiotics because of the antibiotics in the food we eat. The growth hormones, according to Foer, make the meat bigger but is unsafe and not natural. Now Foer is very against over crowding and sensitive issues like that. I personally am not as concerned with that and while I appreciate what Whole Foods does this for the beef, I am much more concerned there antibiotic use.

Whole Foods does not try and appease its customers by anthropomorphizing the cow from the ground beef wrapping. It is a clear cut diagram of where the beef comes from and why Whole Foods is the best. The problem is, not many people can afford the costs and continue to buy antibiotic-rich beef at a cheaper cost. Not only does that affect them, it effects the entire population.

Sources:

Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 3-28. Print.

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.

For this assignment I chose to analyze a Borden cheese stick package, which features an anthropomorphic cow logo on the front of packaging. The cow in the logo is smiling and wearing a necklace mad of daisies, which I believe is supposed to suggest that Borden only uses happy cows to make their cheese and dairy products. There is also a sun shining and bright, upbeat colors surrounding the cow, which insinuates that the farms that Borden raises the cows on are nurturing, natural environments where cows have access to sun light and other necessary amenities. The package also features the name “Elsie” next to the cow, which serves to humanize her and make it seem as though the farmers who raise these cows form personal relationships with their livestock and view them as unique individuals with intrinsic value.

If you were to view the anthropomorphic cow on the package with regards to Foer’s idea of species barrier it would become increasingly apparent that this cow symbol represents the large species barrier that exists within our current food system. In the Words/Meanings section of “Eating Animals” Foer discusses a phenomenon in which humans find themselves drawn to one particular animal while completely disregarding the wellbeing of another smiliar animal. The example that Foer provides focuses on a zoo in Berlin that brought in hundreds of guests by having a cute polar bear named Knut, yet they fed those same animal lovers Wurst de Knut, which was a pork product made entirely from factory farmed pigs. This inability to care for the wellbeing of all species across the board is especially evident through the advertisement of many animal byproducts.  If I were to go into the grocery store and look in the milk section I’d most likely find dozens of cartons and dairy products featuring happy cows on the label, and might even pick one brand over another if one mascot really pulls at my heart strings. This is because species barrier had led me to sympathize with the cute, anthropomorphic version of a cow and disregard the wellbeing of the actual cow that was milked and used for it’s by products. The species barrier causes humans to value one animal, or in this case representation of an animal, over another because that particular animal has a greater usefulness or appeal than another. This is a flawed system because it creates a false dualism that exists just to sell products. These products are marketed to manipulate people’s emotions and in doing so they fail to actually get people interested in the wellbeing of the animals that are being depicted. This is not an issue if the farmers genuinely practice family farming techniques, but if the company marketing these products engages in factory farming practices then this is incredibly misleading and wrong because their cows are definitely not happy in the conditions they’ve placed them in.

Borden’s depiction of cows on their packaging also embodies the new type of Anthropomorphism that Berger discusses in “Why Look at Animals?” when he says, “Anthropomorphism was the residue of the continuous use of animal metaphor. In the last two centuries, animals have gradually disappeared. Today we live without them” (Berger 11). Berger’s ideas on anthropomorphism are important because they help to reveal that anthropomorphism has historically been used to describe the human condition through animal metaphors, but the growing need for animal by-products in last two centuries have led us to lose our connection with these creatures and in turn reduce them to “the model of a machine”. This explains why Borden uses “happy cows” on their packages because it comforts the consumer by making them think they’re supporting a brand that still views animals anthropomorphically, when in reality Borden is just using happy, anthropomorphic depictions of these animals to sell more products. The anthropomorphizing of animals on food packaging is really just an attempt to suggest that the animals are happy to be used for their meat and by-products and are raised in acceptable conditions.

My image is from a Honey Nut Cheerios cereal box. The animal on the box is a cartoon honey bee and he is spreading honey on top of cereal in a bowl. This image of the bee is certainly unrealistic because real bees look nothing like this. This bee is very anthropomorphized because it has a smile, hands and a large head and is even wearing clothing. This image does not show this animal in its natural habitat and a bee would never actually be able to perform actions like it is shown doing on this box. Also, this bee is depicted as an extremely happy animal that enjoys spreading honey on cereal.

I think one of the common assumptions about food animals is that food animals are raised naturally and produce products in a way that is similar to the way that they produce products in nature, away from human contact. However, as discussed in Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, this assumption is completely incorrect. In this book, Foer discusses the many modifications that are implemented in order to keep animals as productive as possible. Although I am unsure of the changes that are established in the lives of bees to create a larger amount of honey production, after reading Foer’s book, I am curious about the steps that are taken to create maximum efficiency. One example of this that I am aware of is that bees that are used to produce honey for profit are often raised in boxes rather than traditional hives. This is similar to Foer’s discussion about factory farms where animals are raised in environments that are very different than the environment that they are meant to live in.

Although many people may think of family farms or wild bees when they think of these products, Foer mentions in his book that 99% of meat now comes from factory farms. It is likely that a large amount of honey production is also produced in similar factory-like settings. It is possible that many people are unaware of the extent of factory farming because of advertising that shows animals in unusually good states. This type of advertising can be described by one of the words that Foer discusses in the “Words/Meaning” chapter: “bullshit”. He defines this word as “Misleading or false language and statement.” Although this particular image does not use any false language, it portrays a false message. I believe that Foer would say that this image and other food advertisements similar to it are used to help the consumer think about positive, happy images of the animals so that they focus less on the reality of the situation such as factory farming and harsh treatment of animals.

As in many images that we have discussed in class, this image also provides an example of Berger’s discussion of the reduction of animals for the benefit of humans. The animal is reduced by humans because this animal’s life is probably extremely unnatural and the animal is used purely for its ability to make a product that humans want. In this case, the bee is used for its honey without any concern for the bee as an individual. Despite this poor treatment by humans, a falsified image of a happy bee is used for advertising as another way for humans to benefit from this animal. This makes it seem as if humans will use animals in any way as long as they can gain something.

Sources:

Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 3-28. Print.

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.

My name is Kevin Mors and I’m a junior Govt. & Law major with a history minor. Last Spring I transferred to Lafayette after spending time at the University of South Carolina and the George Washington University.

I was born in Seoul South Korea and grew up in Ann Arbor Michigan with my mom, dad, and little sister.   We have a dog named Frank and two cats named Chaka and Tiger who have been with us since I was a baby.

I’m a huge sports fan and rarely miss a Lions, Red Wings, Pistons, or Tigers game. Hockey has always been my favorite though; this semester I joined the Lafayette club hockey team that basically takes up my entire night four times a week. Some of the other things I like to do are snowboarding, camping, and traveling.

So far this course has been as interesting as I hoped it would be, I’m excited to keep learning new perspectives regarding how we treat animals.

The product that I have chosen to use is Starkist Tuna Fillet.  I found this tiny little tin in Wawa, and couldn’t help but laugh a little bit when I looked down and saw a big, blue, smiling fish looking at me with its fin directing my attention towards the product’s label.  My first reaction was to recognize immediately that this fish, however blatantly silly it may be, is certainly no tuna.  I think it is important to really see this difference, so here is what an actual Tuna looks like:

Sure, tuna can be blueish on the outside, but nothing like the image on the tin- this is some made up cartoon character.  Just from the outside, I wouldn’t feel too ridiculous in making an assumption that the contents of the tin would be some sort of blue silly puddy.  Further, the fish looks as though it is possibly female, given the pink hair bow, and has impaired sight, judging from the pair of glasses resting in front of its eyes.  Perhaps this misrepresentation and blatant anthropomorphism of the fish is intentional; perhaps it is a way of drawing the mind away from the very concept of the diced up tuna inside.

Next, bringing this image into the context of what Foer has written about the manner in which fish, especially tuna, are caught, it is all the more hysterical (in a dark sense) to see this smiling blue creature looking up at me.  According to Foer, this smiling tuna is essentially representing a species which is the focus of a human genocide.  Foer shows that our tuna fishing is unsustainable and reckless, and literally employs techniques borrowed from war-time capital.  So the net takeaway is basically that this happy, blue, female fish is the poster child for a devastated species, not to mention the other dozens of species that are also devastated as a result of a excessively broad fishing techniques.  Without even establishing an opinion on the subject of industrial fishing, just imagine for a moment the smiling face of someone like Flo from the Progressive Insurance TV commercials pasted on top of a massive crate holding dead human bodies that were the recent defenseless casualties of a massacre, advertising the transport and morgue services.

“We happily bring you deceased human beings quicker and cheaper than anyone else!”

I don’t want to act like I’m somehow equating the severity of those two situations, but really, the same concept applies to an extent – it’s just a little weird to put the smiling face of a given species on top of a tin full of its obliterated remains.  Sure, they’re just fish.  But the really messed up thing is that that advertisement is essentially expecting you to understand the death of something as a smiling, happy event, and that somehow the dead tuna is encouraging you to eat it – giving you a justification which is something along the lines of, “well if the Tuna doesn’t seem to mind, I guess I shouldn’t!”

The business is operating under the understanding that their customers legitimately don’t care in the slightest about the fact that an organic, living thing was killed to support their own organic existence.  I’m one of those annoying people who isn’t really for or against the industrial level consumption of land or sea creatures (I still eat fish and meat but constantly question the fact that I do), but I do believe that there should be some level of outward respect given to something that was graced, as we were, with the ability to live on this earth in its own element.  I’d like to think that even in the midst of the massive economies of scale (a doubling of inputs such as labor or capital into an industry resulting in a more than doubling of output to bring about massive profits) achieved in the fishing and farming industries, there is still a way to respect the life of the deceased organism and avoid anthropomorphism of it without losing significant demand for it.  Maybe no picture at all, or maybe just the standard image of a tuna that I provided above.  When I look at this tin of tuna, I’m not really moved astronomically one way or the other, but I do feel myself grimacing a little and thinking, “ok, this is a little bit excessive and unnecessary.  Maybe this could be done differently.”

Chester Cheetah seems to be another case of large, predatory cats, that are marketed to snack food and kids. Your first impression of the packaging is it’s eye attracting color scheme, focusing on vivid orange red and yellows. Chester is riding a skateboard and  of course, eating a Cheeto. An anthropomorphic cheetah, Chester is savvy and smooth with a deep voice, with a memorable signature phrase. In a market filled with animals as mascots, a cheetah is still memorable and unique. You don’t buy Cheetos to be healthy and feel good about where they were processed and made. The false marketing scheme of labeling something as organic or grass fed isn’t possible with a snack food, which is good as it is marketing them without trying to forge a false clientele. I assume that other students in the class with right about dairy products with happy cows, which is a more twisted marketing scheme due to the cows falsely being associated with qualities such as happiness and freedom, which is ironic and misleading. I picked this product for another, more subtle reason. In the early 2000’s as CGI became relevant, Chester underwent a transformation from being a cool, sporty cat, to a more intellectual creature, often phrasing questions and philosophical debates in his ads. This further developed human-like cheetah is a staple in many households due to both crispy cheesy goodness and an identifiable mascot that is present in cupboards everywhere. It’s not directly false marketing, but it’s still as Foer describes, bullshit.

Instances of using animals as symbols for food is a long used tactic to appeal to younger demographics and draw upon customers natural tendency to like animals. Liking animals doesn’t make you buy Cheetos, but it certainly does make you look at Chester and ponder why they picked a Cheetah for their mascot. Is it because a cheetah is beloved in Western Culture? I do respect the marketing tactics employed by Cheetos as they don’t attempt to fit into a niche that they don’t occupy, it’s not healthy food and has never been marketed as healthy. Many products in a similar market such as Baked Lays and Pirates Booty attempt to reshape a snack-food into a more appealing, healthy alternative. The bag of Cheeto’s doesn’t say no trans fat or low sodium, but rather is says crunchy and cheesy. Of course variants of the original flavor exist, but Chester is omnipresent on every bag of crisps.

Chester is also smiling on the packaging, as he’s intended to be “fun” and sort of a pseudo pink panther. Cheeto’s is owned by Pepsi Co, and it’s evidenced through his changing slogans that their targeted demographic has slightly been altered over time. Firstly the slogan in the 1990’s was “It ain’t easy being cheesy,” to “The cheese with a crunch,” finally to “Dangerously Cheesy.” The terms Foer describes in detail such as Cruelty, and Desperation do not initially link to Chester, but looking deeper we can see their application. Negligence toward animals isn’t encouraged through Cheetos by any means, but it’s worth noting the hypothetical prison of a large predatory cat portraying cheesy, human junk food. The junk food market and cheetah’s truly have no overlap, but it’s a connection that gets kids excited to see a familiar face and character alike. I don’t think Cheeto’s does a bad job of marketing, it’s rather tame in comparison to other animals abused for young demographics. The fun loving Cheetah is both the fastest animal in the world, along with a symbol for popularized snack food, the two are distinctly separated but inherently linked together through modern marketing.

Just as a point of reference, I will link a 1990’s Cheeto’s add here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPH-UmXaaXs

The image I decided to post about was one I found on a milk carton in Wawa. In fact, it was the only milk carton that actually depicted images of cows, which I found interesting. The milk carton had an image that encompassed the entire carton – showing a blue sky, a red barn with a silo, and about five cows all spread out, grazing on green grass in the sunshine. There also was a gold stamp captioned “From Cows Not Treated With rBST” and in smaller script underneath “No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non rBST-treated cows”. The cows are depicted as though they are in their most natural atmosphere, they are not anthropomorphized, but they are idealized. I find it the most interesting that the carton can display this image but not be labeled organic, humane, cruelty-free, natural…etc. Despite Foer’s explanation that these labels are “bullshit”, they still require some guidelines to be able to label themselves as such, and this milk is not following any of them. This image shows the cows as if they are on a small, family-owned farm. However, WaWa is a fairly large corporation and I doubt that five grazing cows could possibly supply the amount of milk in the time and capacity needed for such a corporation. This image depicts “happy cows” – they are free to roam the sunny atmosphere, green grass, and hospitable barn.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s definition of “organic” argues that scenes such as those pictured above are false advertising and deceptive. In his “Eating Animals“, Foer affirms that:

“For meat, milk, and eggs labeled organic, the USDA requires that animals must: (1) be raised on organic feed (that is, crops raised without most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers); (2) be traced through their life cycle (that is, leave a paper trail); (3) not be fed antibiotics or growth hormones; and (4) have “access to the outdoors.” The last criterion, sadly, has been rendered almost meaningless-in some cases “access to the outdoors” can mean nothing more than having the opportunity to look outside through a screened window.”

Taking this into consideration, what does this say about the milk that WaWa provides? If they can’t be labeled as organic, how are they treated? Certainly not like the cows on the front – who have access to the outdoors…yet apparently they do not feed them certain hormones (as stated on the carton in gold). Foer would most definitely notice the idealization of the cow’s life – this image is being used to make us feel better about our choices subconsciously and forget about the strenuous life that is the reality for many dairy cows. We forget about these animals, as Foer argues in “Hiding/Seeking”, and says that since there is no individual animal and “no singular look of joy or suffering” we are apt to forget about these animals and toss aside the thought of their suffering. This ties in very well with both John Berger and Alice Walker, both of whom argue that we’ve forgotten our connection with animals and that is why we can suppress these thoughts. Berger specifically says that animals have become “invisible” – similar to Foer saying that “we see farmed animals so rarely today, it becomes easy to forget”. We physically see the cows on this carton, but we don’t actually see the individual cow at the actual dairy farm. Therefore, we forget that this we are consuming an actual animal product, on a dairy farm that definitely does not look like this grassy pasture.

This article states that the FDA tried to stop the excessive use of antibiotics on farm animals but couldn’t because of opposition from pharmaceutical and agricultural industries!