PETA Vs. Pokemon

Too Much Free Time

from the wrongosaur-i-choose-you dept

It feels like it should be a strange dichotomy, my love for animals coupled with my absolute disdain for PETA, but it isn’t. It essentially boils down to this: PETA has a good premise, anti-cruelty to animals, but the organization seems to like to ensure it won’t be relevant by doubling down on the stupid and crazy. One needs only to look toward their recent foray into the .XXX domain world should one require a head-shaking exercise. They’ve also had occasion in the past to delve into the world of video games, such as when they created a parody of Cooking Mama, focused on having “Mama” kill animals for food.

But now, in an apparent attempt to win both the “Petty Award” and the first annual “We Don’t Know The Video Games We’re Protesting Award”, PETA is now coming out against Pokemon, claiming that the game franchise teaches children to see real world animals as objects that should fight one another for our amusement.
In other words, PETA has decided that Pokemon’s upcoming release of two new games is just grand enough to stand upon.

Much like animals in the real world, Pokémon are treated as unfeeling objects and used for such things as human entertainment and as subjects in experiments. The way that Pokémon are stuffed into pokéballs is similar to how circuses chain elephants inside railroad cars and let them out only to perform confusing and often painful tricks that were taught using sharp steel-tipped bullhooks and electric shock prods …if PETA existed in Unova, our motto would be: Pokémon are not ours to use or abuse. They exist for their own reasons. We believe that this is the message that should be sent to children.

It would be very easy to simply write this off as an attempt by PETA to put themselves in the headlines on the backs of a popular game franchise’s latest release. Indeed, that is exactly what they’re doing here, though they may want to recognize that there is such a thing as bad attention. However, it seems impossible not to call PETA out on the blatant stupidity of this move. First of all, at best, nobody cares. Anyone with half a brain knows that there is zero reason to correlate cartoonish animal universes like Pokemon to real-world cruelty. PETA might as well come out against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for fear that kids will go down to their local ponds, see a snapping turtle, and karate kick its face off for fear that the animal is going to steal their double-crust pizza. As a child of the 80’s I can assure you that it only takes two or three times roundhousing helpless turtles to realize that they really aren’t so bad and it’s in fact you, said karate kicker, who is the jackass.

Second, it’s brutally clear that nobody at PETA has bothered to actually play the Pokemon games. As Forbes notes, if they had, they would realize that the core theme of the universe is largely in line with their own views.

PETA seems to have missed the single biggest theme of the Pokémon series: That Pokémon should be treated humanely and live as our equals. The games are loaded with an endless stream of characters who go on and on about true friendship between man and Pokémon. It’s so saccharine and so completely the opposite of what PETA suggests that it boggles the mind.

So here’s to you, PETA. You’ve managed to waste everybody’s time while simultaneously proving you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Again. For ever and ever. Amen.

Filed Under: peta, pokeman, publicity stunts, video games