Barbie, Bradley Cooper, and Bella Ramsey Among PETA Oscat Winners
For Immediate Release:
February 21, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
At the height of awards season, PETA is announcing the recipients of its seventh annual Oscat Awards, pulling out all the stops to honor the compassionate stars and movies that stole the show by promoting kindness to animals in 2023 through storylines, costumes, and special effects.
For reminding audiences that there’s no such thing as a “happy” farm, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget won Best Picture, while Bella Ramsey nabbed Best Actor for being a voice to chickens everywhere as the clever and resourceful Molly. The sublime abundance of animal-friendly statement pieces showcased in Barbie—including Barbie’s pink vegan leather Birkenstocks and fur-free boots—earned stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, director Greta Gerwig, and costume designer Jacqueline Durran the Best Fauxjo Mojo Fashion Moments Oscat.
Meanwhile, in a scene reminiscent of a PETA demonstration, Thanksgiving director Eli Roth served a human as the main course for Thanksgiving dinner, shedding light on the horror that animals killed for their flesh experience—and snagged Best Director in the process. Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, and Noa Raskin earned Best Team-Up for bringing life to Rocket Raccoon’s harrowing journey out of an animal experimentation laboratory and into freedom in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, while Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alan Menken, and Halle Bailey netted Best Original Song with “For the First Time” from The Little Mermaid—in which Ariel asks, “Are we only food for slaughter? Is this life on land?”
“From exposing the grim reality of the meat industry to crafting cruelty-free couture, this year’s Oscat winners showed that Hollywood is increasingly leaving animal exploitation on the cutting-room floor,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is delighted to celebrate these compassionate artists and projects, whose animal-friendly flicks are bringing home the gold.”
Other winning films with positive messages include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which reminded audiences everywhere that “Every Animal Is Someone” and deserves our respect, earning Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Splinter the Speciesism Shredders Oscat. Crime thriller Reptile—starring PETA pals Benicio Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone—was this year’s PETA Pick for emphasizing that a detective’s birthday was celebrated in vegan style and that “no animals were harmed making this cake.” And which film won the award for Best Documentary? None other than Pamela, A Love Story, in which Pamela Anderson discusses her decades of animal rights activism.
The winners will each receive a framed certificate. The full list of awards is available here.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
