If PETA Can Make a CGI Primate, Why Can’t Ryan Murphy?
Group Sends Ratched Executive Producer a Message in a Video Featuring Queen Song ‘I Want to Break Free’
For Immediate Release:
September 30, 2020
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
To show that there’s no excuse for using wild animals in film and television, PETA has just sent Ryan Murphy—who used a live capuchin monkey in the Netflix series Ratched—a VFX breakdown of a video featuring a realistic computer-generated gorilla listening to Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” to remind the filmmaker of the humane alternatives that are available today. The magnificent CGI silverback in PETA Germany’s video was created by Swedish animation studio FABLEfx.
“If a nonprofit can create a lifelike gorilla using technology, then certainly Hollywood can, too,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “Forcing real animals to perform is as archaic as it is cruel, and PETA is calling on Ryan Murphy to do better by monkeys and switch to CGI.”
Primates used in the entertainment industry are typically taken away from their mothers as babies and frequently denied adequate psychological and social stimulation, proper exercise, and the opportunity to engage in natural behavior. Many suffer from debilitating loneliness and depression. Moreover, when real monkeys appear in movies or TV shows, it can mislead audiences into thinking that these animals are happy in human environments, even inspiring viewers to acquire them as “pets,” thereby fueling the shady captive wild-animal trade.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that primate advocates from Jane Goodall and Andy Serkis to Alan Cumming and Anjelica Huston have spoken out about the cruelty inherent in using these animals for entertainment. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
