‘Joe vs. Carole’ Nabs PETA Award for CGI Tigers
For Immediate Release:
March 3, 2022
Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382
A “Tech, Not Terror” Award from PETA is on its way to the creator and studio behind Joe vs. Carole, in thanks for using cutting-edge, cruelty-free computer-generated imagery (CGI) instead of real tigers—and for using no real exotic animals at all—in their series about Tiger King subject Joseph Maldonado-Passage (aka “Joe Exotic”). The limited series debuts today on Peacock.
In letters sent to Joe vs. Carole star Kate McKinnon and the show’s production company, Universal Content Productions, when plans for the series were first announced, PETA pointed out that wild animals suffer when used for entertainment, whether by roadside zoo operators like those featured in Tiger King or by trainers for the film and TV industry. PETA and law enforcement investigations have uncovered animals being whipped, illegally imported, and kept in deplorable conditions by animal suppliers for Hollywood.
“Big cats don’t deserve to suffer for TV any more than they deserve to suffer at shoddy roadside zoos like those in Tiger King, and using CGI can help audiences make that connection,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “While we’d hope that tigers wouldn’t be exploited for a story about wild-animal abuse, PETA is happy to celebrate Joe vs. Carole for leaving tigers in peace and urges all productions to opt for tech, not terror, to depict wild animals.”
When used for film and television, tigers and other wild animals are routinely separated from their mothers prematurely, denying them the maternal care that they need for normal development; condemned to a life of deprivation; and forced to perform under the threat of a whip or other weapons. Because wild animals are exactly that—wild—no amount of training can ever completely override their natural instincts, making them extremely dangerous.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit AnimalsInFilmAndTV.com or follow PETA on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
