Disney joins forces with pro-fish activists

Outdoors Magazine wrote:
Disney joins forces with pro-fish activists

Pro-fish activists have won permission from Disney to adapt a film poster
for Finding Nemo to help promote vegetarianism to youngsters.

Cool! Are they going to quit selling meat at Disneyland resorts, too?


Pressure group Peta says it is using the cartoon characters on leaflets,
along with a two-metre tall fish, to persuade children not to eat fish.

I wonder how this will play out with the Roman Catholic Church? Even
though it's no longer mandated, many Catholics still traditionally eat
fish on Fridays. Will we be seeing PETA demonstrators disrupting
services while dressed as marine life?


The film features a shark who attends a support group for vegetarians which
uses the Peta slogan prominently.

I have a Sherman's Lagoon cartoon on my refrigerator. In it, the shark
is screaming, "It burns! It burns!" One character asks, "What happened
to him?" The other replies, "He accidentally ate a vegetable."
"Ooh," says the first one, "Shark Kryptonite!"


A spokesman for Peta (People of the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said: "We
were delighted to see our tag-line 'Fish are friends not food' in the
Finding Nemo movie.

Tell that to the woman who was killed by a great white shark while
swimming with seals...


"The slogan is even being used on Finding Nemo pyjamas."

"We hope that after seeing Finding Nemo, children will agree that fish
belong in the ocean, not on dinner plates."

Doubtful. Especially the kids whose parents take them fishing. You guys
know how a kid's face lights up when he shows his/her parents the fish
they just caught, and how they bask in their parents' approval. A few
cartoon slogans from a whacked-out nut group simply can't compete with
that! When mom or dad brings out a plate of fillets that the kid caught,
that child feels the glow of having contributed to the family table all
by itself. I remember the (admittedly few) times we had trout or catfish
I caught all by myself. (we, uh, won't discuss the mackerel incident,
okay?) The art of fishing has deep ties to family and social interaction.

I'm surprised that Disney would enter into such an agreement with PETA.
I can't imagine what kind of benefit they think they'll receive through
associating with these extremists! What rocket scientologist on the
Disney payroll came up with this brainstorm? If this committee or
whatever thought that associating with PETA would promote a Disney image
of environmental awareness and our dwindling resources, they should have
pulled their heads out of their asses before making this decision. PETA
isn't an environmental organization. Their one goal, unrealistic and
unattainable as it may be, is to change the dietary habits of every
hominid on the planet. If you press them on any issue, you will
eventually arrive at the bottom line. "We don't think people should eat
meat." That's PETA in a nutshell. (no pun intended) Realistically
speaking, if marine exploitation was really a main concern of PETA's,
they would support individual anglers taking what they can use over
commercial nets and longlines. If this is what Disney thought it was
buying by entering into this association, somebody is either sadly
misinformed, stone ignorant, or a covert PETA supporter who shouldn't be
making policy for an image-concious mega-corporation like Disney. Disney
enjoys an image of a family-friendly entertainment business. Family
friendly is one thing, but now the Disney conglomerate has come into
your house, pulled up a chair at the kitchen table, and started telling
you what you should or should not eat. I say, kick the chair out from
under it, grab it by the belt and collar, and frogmarch it to the front
door and shove it down the stairs!

And speaking of "Fish are Friends, Not Food..." I wouldn't mind meeting
that two-meter long spokesfish. With my eight-foot jig stick and a Salas
6X tied on 40lb test line spooled onto my Penn 500...

I'm a friendly angler. I'll bring him home for dinner!

I'm done ranting now...sheesh!

barbz



Story filed: 13:55 Thursday 9th October 2003

Copyright © 2003 Ananova Ltd

Doubtful. Especially the kids whose parents take them fishing. You guys
know how a kid's face lights up when he shows his/her parents the fish
they just caught, and how they bask in their parents' approval.

Problem is, do you realize how few parents take their kids fishing, and how few
kids actually have ever been fishing? I bet nationwide it is less than 30
percent. We are headed in the wrong direction.
Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com