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Through Animal Rights Lenses
The reasoning of the existence of a superior race is often used as a basis for animal objectification. Humans are believed to be the more advanced species when it comes to intelligence and even physique. This train of thought has allowed humans to justify hunting down animals, taking animals from their natural habitats and using them for purposes that would suit human’s wants and needs. Very few have ever questioned this notion, especially in the 19th century where things were very simplistic and the advancement of human society was the main concern. One of the earliest films that challenged that said notion of humans superiority over animals was the 1968 film by Franklin J. Schaffner titled “The Planet of the Apes.” The Planet of the Apes is a sci-fi movie that questions our concept of what is ‘normal’ in the hierarchical order of species by creating an inverted society wherein instead of being the superior species, humans are the lowest race. Thus, the movie made viewers realize how dire the situation of animals are by using a “what if” approach of placing humans in the shoes of animals.
The story follows George Taylor, an astronaut, as he crash-landed, together with three other astronauts, in a seemingly different planet. Later on, however, it is revealed that this planet is actually earth set in the future. In this place, apes are the superior race and humans are simply dumb animals to be treated as pets or pests depending on what the apes decide on.
The reversal of roles of humans and apes is a bizarre concept historically speaking especially since at the time that the film was released, anthropocentrism or the idea that humans are the most significant species was the main belief that people shared (Gunnarsson). However, in order to create a powerful piece, the movie needed to remove all biases. If the movie had retained the usual scenario – dominant humans, submissive animals being used or tortured – it would be just another animal welfare documentary and would not have much impact. The usual scenario would either make the viewer’s instantly defensive – in turn make the viewers come up with justifications for the dominant human’s action – or it may cause an indignation for the treatment of animals that most probably will only last until the end of the movie. By stripping the humans in the movie of all their power, the viewers watched the film with their walls down. Subsequently, they can view the film with their honest opinion. The main lead of the film, Taylor, garnered sympathetic responses from the audience but on the other hand, the apes of the movie were hated at first (especially the gorillas which will be explained later on). However, if the viewer stops and thinks about it, the reason he or she thinks that the apes in the movie are unreasonable, heartless beings are the same reason that most people disregard when it’s the other way around – when animals are the ones who are being treated unfairly. The beauty of the film is that it uses the viewer’s emotions against them.
The humans in this alternate reality are savage unintelligent beings that do not have the ability to speak. The human’s inability when it comes to speech was highlighted several times in scenes such as the one wherein Taylor shocked the Apes by suddenly shouting “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!” and the scene wherein he unsuccessfully tried to teach Nova to speak (Booker 94).
The movie had artfully played with the concept of humans having no voice as a literal depiction of the modern concept of animals having no voice in the society. Of course, the animal having no voice is a metaphor which just means that few people care about the rights of animals. Society was built on the foundation of people so it is no wonder that the interest of people comes first. In this kind of set-up, everything else must work for the favor of humans. Natural resources such as trees and mountains are cleared for the establishments needed by people. Animals are used for food, livelihood and entertainment. This mentality was maintained for such a long time that no one is entirely sure when it even started. In keeping with the anthropocentrism mentioned before, the rights that are protected are primarily those of the humans. In this manner, animal rights are still shaped in a way that will not be superior to human rights. Since humans do not understand animal language, animals need someone to protect their rights in their behalf. These people who speak for and protect animal rights are depicted in the movie as the anti-vivisectionist group. The anti-vivisectionist group in the film functions as it would in the real world. They protect human rights just like their real-world counterpart protect animal rights.
One of the more disturbing scenes in the movie “The Planet of the Apes” are the ones where humans are used as laboratory tools. After being captured, Taylor was immediately handed to Dr. Zira, an animal psychologist, to be experimented upon regarding brain surgery and behavioral studies. A rather startling scene was the one which showed Taylor and Nova strapped on surgical beds while inside a cage among many other cages containing humans. In the movie, Zira and Cornelius were talking about Taylor like he wasn’t even there.
The very controversial issue of animal testing is reflected in the movie by, again, reversal of roles. Instead of the man being the scientist, he is now reduced to the status of a laboratory animal. Most societies in the real world place top priority on scientific researches that would benefit the human race. These researches include pharmacology and new surgical procedures as these often are the determining factors to the chances of a man’s survival. To attain the goal of scientific advancement however, there is a need of live experimentation, to have a gist of how the new medicine or procedure would affect a human’s body. Thus, animal experimentation began. According to the United States Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), for many years, animals are used as laboratory necessities for measuring certain parameters such as chemistry, pharmacology which determines the effect of the drug, and toxicology which pinpoints the possible negative effect of the drug. FDA supports the reduction of animal testing but it also acknowledges that as of now, there are still areas in which it is necessary to utilize animal testing. For example, scientists need to know how well a drug is absorbed in the blood or how a product is broken down in the body.
As early as the 19th century, people are already conscious about the welfare of animals being used in researches. In fact, an article entitled Laws and Regulation that can be found in the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) website states that by 1966, The Animal Welfare Act has already taken effect. This act regulates the standards for the needs of animals used for research and experiments. These needs include shelter, food, and veterinary care. For sensitive species such as the chimpanzees, additional needs such as psychological well-being are also taken into consideration. However, even if there are laws and regulations governing animal welfare, these laws are often violated due to many factors, one of which is the sheer number of natural born and genetically engineered animals that are in the custody of scientific laboratories. In fact, NEAVS mentioned that in the United States, around 100 million animals are used every year. People’s natural curiosity is another factor as to why animal rights are violated. There is no limit to the questions people want to know the answer. For one discovery, many more inquiries sprout out. Connecting to the issue of superiority, humans are, as much as possible, not willing to sacrifice their own race for the pursuit of knowledge but are unwilling to let go of a scientific idea that looks promising. As such, they look for an alternative – a different species. Laboratory animals are then used. Mice and rats are common laboratory animals because they can easily be genetically engineered. Apes too are one of the favorite species to use in animal testing since they are biologically closer to humans than any other species.
Taylor’s friend and co-astronaut, Landon, was not as lucky as Taylor when it comes to escaping the surgical table and the condescending nature of the doctors assigned to him. Landon was showed in a particular scene walking in a zombie-like state and gazing blankly after he was lobotomized. This was the scene wherein the apes challenged Taylor to prove that he had indeed came from a planet where humans are intelligent and that he is not just a deviation from the norm. By showing that the people that came with him were also capable of conversation, he can prove that he is not the only one, thus proving that what he said at the trial about the capabilities of humans are true. Since Dodge was already killed during the hunt, only Landon can be examined. However, Landon was apparently stripped of his intellectual capabilities by lobotomy which is showed with the shaved hair and the scar on his forehead. In short, he was reverted to an animal that the apes in the movie thought he was, discrediting all things Taylor said at the trial.
Landon was secretly lobotomized so that the apes can prove their existing theory that humans have none of the intelligence that apes apparently has. Put in another way, it can be said that the procedure was done to prove the superiority of apes over humans. According to Tanya Lewis in an article in Live Science, lobotomy is a “neurosurgical operation that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal lobe.” It is interesting to note that it was mentioned in the same article that before lobotomy was done to human patients, almost the same procedure was conducted on chimpanzees. The neurosurgery on chimpanzees was done in 1935 and the scientists responsible for it were John Fulton and Carlyle Jacobsen. By putting Landon in the position of the chimpanzees experimented on in 1935, the movie had managed to capture the relevance of this issue. It raised the question that nobody had probably asked at that time of the experimentation – why was the first trials done on chimpanzees and not on humans once it is perfectly clear that these trials can easily go wrong and kill the test subject?
In the earlier part of the movie, there is a scene wherein gorillas on horseback chased humans around, shot them and led them into traps. Later on, these gorillas hung some humans they caught, stood beside their catch and took pictures with grins on their faces.
The scenes mentioned above are similar to how men hunt animals for food in the primeval times, entertainment for recreational hunting, or scientific purposes such as to catch animals to be brought to laboratories. According to an article entitled “Anti-Hunting” that can be found in the In Defense of Animals (IDA) website, animal hunting often guarantee prolonged pain, if not death, for the animal. Animals are chased into traps and are often crippled. This was depicted quite accurately by the scene in the movie such as the humans being forced to jump from cliffs. The picture-taking of the apes beside the hung humans are reminiscent of a usual occurrence in fishing. In fishing, when a person who is new to act catches fish, he or she will proudly raise up his or her first catch still gasping for life and struggling against the hook on its mouth while another person takes the picture. The picture is then kept as a memorabilia of a happy event and of success. However, when the exact same thing is depicted in the movie, the shock factor among the audience was huge. “How cruel! How can they smile and pose for the camera while someone is suffering?” That was the popular opinion of the viewers. However, the objective of the movie was to ask the exact same question back to the viewers.
The succeeding scenes showed Taylor and several other humans captured and caged. Interestingly, according to an article entitled “American West – the Cattle Industry,” it was also around this time that farmers began enclosing cattle in smaller environment by setting up barbed wires around the space that they owned. The little bit of freedom that cattle had when it comes to roaming the grazing land were taken away just like what happened to Taylor when he got captured and even shot in the throat. His freedom of space as well as speech was taken away from him. Subsequently, the violence shown can be a play on the violence existing in slaughterhouses at that time. According to Dorothee Brantz’s article titled “Recollecting the Slaughterhouse,” the things people see in slaughterhouses are enough to inspire terror in those who see it. In fact, according to Brantz, slaughterhouses became very popular as a ‘horror booth’ that during the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, more people went to see the slaughterhouse than any other attractions.
Another scene that stood out in the movie was the court scene wherein Taylor was taken in front of a high-level board. Zira and Cornelius were the ones who were expected to talk in behalf of Taylor and when Taylor spoke for himself, he was immediately rebuked. This sheds light on the truth that often times, the only reasoning that humans listens to are the arguments that came from humans. Even obvious signal of distress are sometimes overlooked if the animal ‘handler’ deems that the animal is okay. If the animal reacts aggressively when it is feeling threatened, the animal is the one who is deemed at fault. Similarly, the movie depicts that the only voice that the apes are willing to tolerate are those from apes. Their ideals are what they uphold and they do not believe that humans are capable of defending themselves.
The character of Zira is one of the more important characters to focus on the movie “Planet of the Apes” when it comes to the angle of animal rights because Zira’s role is the movie’s version of the stereotypical moral-driven scientist. Zira was depicted not as a villain but a scientist that actually cares about her test subject. She was still a scientific person as seen by her fascination with Taylor’s intelligence and her desire to use Taylor for behavioral studies but she also followed certain ethics. Zira’s character criticizes the argument of several scientists that animals are not treated cruelly at laboratories so their experiments are justified. This however is a clear case of hypocrisy because even if the animals are not being hurt physically like in the case of behavioral studies, animals are still taken out of their natural habitat and taken into captivity for long periods of time. If Taylor was not different, then she would have treated him with the same condescending nature she gives to the other humans in her laboratory.
According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 125,000 primates in the Unites States are taken into laboratories every year to be subjected to different experiments precisely because their biological and psychological characteristics closely resembles those of humans. An article in Daily Mail titled “Newborn babies” stress levels double if they're put in cots” revealed that in animal research, it is actually quite common to separate the newborn animal from its mother.
PETA also states that the separation is a very stressful event for the young animal because the process itself is crude and cruel. For animal babies that are born in laboratories, they are separated from their mothers as early as within the 3rd day of birth. Naturally, the mother’s instinct kicks in and the screaming starts as the mother refuses to give up her baby and the baby clings fearfully to the mother. The people in the laboratories, however, are deaf to the cries of both mother and child. The animal babies captured from the wild undergo an even more traumatic experience because the mothers are often stunned with dart guns in order to stop their defensive acts in protecting their young. The young animals, often not understanding the situation, are fooled into thinking that their mother is dead. The worst part is that this is not the end of their suffering. Instead, it is only the beginning.
Primate and non-primate animals alike lived a hard live in the human world of the 19th century. Although animal rights awareness took form during that time, it was not tantamount to the harmonious world that people from both sides of the issue are aiming for. Even in the year 2014, things have not changes much. The truth is that animals are only protected fully when it is convenient to people involved. Otherwise, animals are shamelessly exploited. “Planet of the Apes” questions not only the issue of superiority over other species but also the existence of two leading sayings – “The end justifies the means” and “Sacrifice the few for the good of many.” With these sayings, it is easy for people to accept the reality of animals being used in scientific purposes or any other purposes because they quantify the value of lives. In this quantification, animals are always at the losing end. The rationale behind the comparison is that humans are more important by virtue of being the superior species therefore animals should be sacrificed for the good of humans. However, the film “The Planet of the Apes” had managed to question this rationale in the most creative way – by creating an alternative world where the same rationale applies except for the fact that this time humans are at the losing end. “The Planet of the Apes” raises an important angle on animal empathy and that is that in the end, people and animals are not really any different. If we look through animal lenses, the differences that people see in species are actually just superficial. At the base of it all, we are all similar and that ultimately, is the point of the movie.
Works Cited:
The Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. Perf. Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall,
Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter, James Whitmore, James Daly, and Linda Harrison. APJAC
Productions, 1968. Film.
Booker, M. Keith. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Westport,
CT: Praeger, 2006. Print.
Gunnarsson, Logi. "The Great Apes And The Severely Disabled: Moral Status And Thick
Evaluative Concepts." Ethical Theory & Moral Practice 11.3 (2008): 305-326. Academic
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“American West – The Cattle Industry.” History on the Net. Advertica Media, LLC, n.d. Web. 4
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”Why are animals used for testing medical products?” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. U.S.
Lewis, Tanya. “What is a lobotomy?” Live Science. Purch, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 4 June 2014.
Lauerman, John. “Animal Research.” Harvard Magazine. Harvard University, n.d. Web. 4 June
2014.
“Animal Actors.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA.org, n.d. Web. 7
June 2014.
“Primates in Laboratories.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA.org, n.d. Web. 7
June 2014.
“Newborn babies' stress levels double if they're put in cots.” Daily Mail Online. Associated
Newspapers Ltd, 4 Nov. 2011. Web. 7 June 2014.
“Laws and Regulations.” NEAVSTM. New England Anti-Vivisection Society, 2014. Web. 9 June
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“Anti-Hunting.” In Defense of Animals. IDA, n.d. Web. 9 June 2014.
