Joker: Folie à Deux Moviegoers to Get Message From Joaquin Phoenix Condemning Cruelty to Fish
For Immediate Release:
October 1, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Joker: Folie à Deux audiences are in for more than just one iconic team-up when the highly anticipated film opens on October 4. Moviegoers rushing to see Harley Quinn’s debut in the DC Universe will receive a sobering message from Joaquin Phoenix and PETA—in which the actor and vegan activist appears underwater, terror-stricken and struggling for oxygen—to emphasize that fish endure agonizing deaths when they’re dragged from their watery homes. The spot will runin theaters in Los Angeles and New York as well as in Maine and Massachusetts—two of the leading states for fishing license sales.
“In water, humans drown, just as fish suffocate on land. It’s slow and painful and frightening, and we do it to more than 1 trillion fish every year,” Phoenix says in the video. “Put yourself in their place. Try to relate.”
More fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. Fish feel pain as acutely as mammals do, have long-term memories, and sing underwater. Yet they’re impaled, crushed, suffocated, dropped into pots of boiling water, or cut open and gutted, often while they’re still conscious. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint, and avoids ingesting the many toxic chemicals found in the flesh of fish, including mercury, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch.
The spot will run at theaters in Hollywood and Rancho Palos Verdes, California; New York City, where Joker: Folie à Deux was filmed; Portland, Sanford, and Westbrook, Maine; and Falmouth and South Dennis, Massachusetts.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—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, Facebook, or Instagram.
