Dogs, cats and McCarthyism at Hot Docs: Your Mommy Kills Animals

Brian D. Johnson | April 24, 2007

In America, merely expressing ideas about animal rights, the Middle East, or genetically altered foods could land you in jail. That’s the message that emerges from some hair-raising documentaries showing at Hot Docs in Toronto this week. Take Your Mommy Kills Animals. The title refers to a comic book pushed on kids by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

When I ran into the film’s American director, Curt Johnson, at a Hot Docs party he was wearing a T-shirt for the film, which reproduces the comic-book cover—showing a maniacal, blood-splattered mom attacking a bunny with a butcher’s knife. It’s an eye-catching poster. But just because the film has adopted PETA’s cartoon and its slogan doesn’t mean it endorses PETA’s propaganda. On the contrary, the film presents evidence that PETA has done some animal killing of its own—Curt shows harrowing images of 36 dead kittens and puppies that were discovered in a dumpster after PETA employees “rescued” them from a vet, euthanized them, and gave them an unceremonious burial.

Curt told me he didn’t know much about the animal rights movement until he started making his movie. What prompted his interest was a Drudge Report item revealing that the FBI declared animal rights activists the number-one domestic terrorist threat in the United States in 2005. (Eat your heart out, Osama. The bunny huggers are on your tail.)

The documentary offers a fascinating profile of the animal protection movement, clarifying the sharp distinction between animal wefare organizations, such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States—which both have animal blood on their hands—and the more radical animal rights groups, which oppose all forms of animal testing and euthenasia. The documentary is relatively dispassionate, and Curt claims to have no axe to grind, but a documentary doesn’t have to declare its point of view in order to have one. Your Mommy Kills Animals adds up to a sympathetic portrait of the animal rights movement—at least insofar as it has become the target of a witchhunt. The narrative focuses on the prosecution of the so-called SHAC 7, a group of six activists and a corporation—Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA Inc. The activists were convicted on conspiracy charges—with sentences of ranging from one to six years in prision each, plus millions of dollars of fines—simply for campaigning to close down the animal testing facilities of Huntington Life Sciences. Their crimes were maintaining a website, and sending “black faxes” (loops of nuisance faxes). No matter what you think of animal testing, it is shocking to see people being jailed for their ideas, rather than their actions under the cover of Patriot Act anti-terrorism measures. Acts of minor civil disobedience that would not have raised an eyebrow pre-9/11 are now terrorist activities.