'Carnage' by Simon Amstell - a Review
'Carnage' by British comedian and vegan Simon Amstell is quite simply the best vegan movie I have ever seen. In fact, I believe it's the best vegan movie ever made.
It never had the huge billing that, say, 'The Game Changers' received , nor is it generally talked about or recommended among vegans to anything like the same degree as Earthlings or Dominion, yet it is uniquely powerful in the way it manages to combine virtual non-stop laugh-out-loud humour with gut-wrenching tragedy, horror and a scathing critique of society in which humanity does not come out looking good. Carnage is a mockumentary. The film's premise is that it is set in 2067 when everyone is vegan and is a documentary taking a look back at how messed up and primitive society was in the 'old days' when animal abuse was considered normal and almost everyone ate meat and dairy. It is written from the perspective of an audience that can barely imagine the mindset that it took to simultaneously be part of a 'nation of animal lovers' while at the same time being part of a holocaust against non-human animals on a scale the mind cannot even grasp. Young people in 2067 look to the older generation for answers as to how this slaughter and abuse on such a monumental scale could have been allowed to happen. “Why would anyone eat a baby?” someone asks. “It’s just a baby. A little baby lamb.” Support groups help people from the older generation to work through the paralysing guilt of knowing they were part of something inexcusable and abhorrent. 'We didn't know - how could we?' Yet time and again we are reminded that few of these horrors were hidden - it was just that people were all-too-eager to remain blind to what they were a part of, encouraged by a popular culture of banality and sugar-coated entertainment. "People would rather watch pets being dressed up as super heroes or pirates than watch a cow being shot in the head". Brilliantly weaving acting with real stock footage from popular celebrity culture, actual news clips and animal abuse it is a rollercoaster which challenges the very core of viewers' assumptions about what is currently considered 'normal'. Time and again throughout the film I found myself laughing uncontrollably one second then in the next second having the laughter turn hollow and die as the reality of the very real horrors of the present are juxtaposed. Parts of the film had me close to tears. Throughout it all, Amstell delivers a perfect documentary-like commentary which captures the sheer cognitive dissonance of society in a way which is right on the button. Carnage was made in 2017 but foretold the current pandemic with chilling prescience. It talks about 'The super swine flu of 2021' which 'pushed the NHS to breaking point' and was a result of society's addiction to animal flesh. It's not only carnist society which feels the brunt of Amstell's humour. There are many self-deprecating laughs along the way at some of the more cringeworthy aspects of the vegan movement itself. A lot of fun is poked at vegan stereotypes. We haven't always got it right and the film acknowledges that some of the methods used might not have been as effective as they could be. "In those days vegans were seen as so ridiculous that they weren't even allowed on TV". Yet even statements like this are really more of a criticism of popular culture than of the vegan movement itself and while carnists are laughing uproariously at the vegan stereotypes, Amstell is slipping in a barrage of hard-hitting blows in a rapid-fire psychological assault. Despite the film being so effective in slipping vegan philosophy past the defences of unsuspecting carnists, Amstell says he never set out to turn people vegan. "I'm not an activist, I'm a clown, I'm going for funny", he claimed during one interview about the movie. Whether or not Amstell intended to be influential in the shift towards veganism, I believe his film, Carnage, is just that. For all it's self-mocking humour, poignancy and horror, it's message is ultimately one of optimism. "Ultimately, it’s going to be really awkward to keep eating other animals,” says Simon Amstell. “At the moment you can do it and society says it’s fine, but at some point I think there’s going to be a shift, probably over the next five years maybe because there’s so much information out there and you know it’s out there. You can’t then be putting milk in your tea without knowing milk from a cow means a baby was taken from her. You just know that now. I’m sorry." "“This revolution is going to happen now, whether anyone likes it or not", he says. "This is happening anyway. For the animals it has to happen, and for our own health.” Watch Carnage on BBC iPlayer Now Twitter have just announced yesterday that they are developing a new 'Super Follower' feature on the platform where people could pay a monthly subscription to access extra content from the favourite Twitter accounts.
So for example writers or bloggers could provide additional content, whether it be articles, short stories, essays or whatever, behind a paywall and followers could pay a monthly subscription - say $4.99 for example - in order to access that extra content. My assumption is that it won't be limited to just written content, either. Presumably, creators could also charge for podcasts, video content, photography and more. It's a very similar idea to what's been used for some time now on Patreon, OnlyFans, KoFi, etc. with the obvious advantage that instead of having to send your Twitter followers off to one of these all the other platforms, the whole thing is integrated into Twitter itself. Presumably Twitter will take a cut of this and so it's a potential source of extra revenue for Twitter and as such it's been showcased to investors as one of two exciting developments that are in the pipeline at the moment. The other one is 'groups' which is likely to be very similar to Facebook groups which is hugely popular and will allow people with similar interests to interact and share in their own dedicated spaces. It's unclear to me at the moment whether these will be two mutually exclusive developments, or whether group facilitators will also be able to charge a monthly subscription for access to those groups, but either way these two new announcements are causing a huge stir within the world of social media at the moment and beyond. My initial feelings towards this are quite positive I'm quite excited about both of these ideas but what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on these plans... let me know your opions... via a tweet of course! I wanted to share a secret with you today... We all know that Tweets with images generally get a higher engagement than text-only tweets. Videos increase engagement levels even more so, but the problem is that you can't just go around using other people's images willy-nilly... it's neither honourable nor legal and could get you into hot water. Enter a wonderful site called Pexels that I use all the time as a source of the most amazing images for my Twitter posts.
And just to be perfectly clear, I'm NOT affiliated to Pexels in any way... I'm not making any money from recommending them... I just think it's an awesome resource and wanted to share it with you.
I have a dream...
Well, it's not a dream, exactly, more a yearning in my heart. And I think you feel it, too. It's the deep, ever-present longing for peace. I suspect, when you boil it right down, this yearning for peace is felt at some level by every sentient being on Earth. I know from my own personal experience that even when I've lost sight of this ultimate goal and ideal, when fear and anger have clouded my mind and judgement and led me down paths I really had no business going down, when I've been caught up in negative and harmful emotions, the underlying drive has still been the deep seated and subconscious desire for peace. It's what drives people to make money. It's what drives people towards self-development... or self destruction. It drives people to great heights. And to pits of despair. To religion. To drugs. To meditation. To war. It's what drew me from a very early age towards eastern spirituality and Buddhism in particular, and it's why I went vegan. Now, after 50 years on this strange, beautiful, terrifying planet this yearning is still there as strong as , if not stronger than ever. Throughout the history of our species the search for peace, collectively and on an individual basis, has been an ongoing theme that has shaped humanity. And it shapes the social and ritual interactions between individuals among virtually all species of sentient animals. Whatever our political beliefs, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation or species, we all want the option of living our lives in peace. And so it is a constant, daily struggle for me to try to come to terms with the fact that despite knowing how awful it is to suffer pain, fear and loss, the majority of us still continue to knowingly inflict suffering on our fellow Earthlings for what amounts, much of the time, to no good reason at all. Every day millions of sensitive, innocent beings who only want to live their own lives in peace, are imprisoned, tortured, beaten and murdered to make so-called 'food' and commodities we don't need. In our yearning to experience some sort of peace, however fleeting, in our own lives we create agony in the lives of others and even deprive them of life itself. But I believe that the more we can acknowledge the need for peace in our own lives, and the more we can cultivate that peace as a tangible day-to-day reality, the more we can allow ourselves to open up our hearts to the suffering of others, both human and non-human. The more we can relax into the space of our hearts and let go of the compulsions we use to escape our own suffering, but which actually stop us from experiencing our own peace, then the more sensitive and compassionate we can allow ourselves to be towards others. We might even find that in order to experience peace in our own lives, we don't necessarily have to deprive our brothers and sisters of peace in theirs. Om Shanti. So I hatched a cunning plan to get 1 million followers on twitter. No, I'm not telling you what it is. I'm not even going to start putting it into practice yet... Or for the foreseeable future... Because it won't be easy. Of course it won't be easy... If getting a million twitter followers was easy everyone would be doing it and it would kind of defeat the object. No, it will be hard and it will take some dedication, but I'm confident it will work and I'll be sure to let you all know if and when I decide to start. Why would I want a million followers anyway? Well, two reasons. Firstly, I like to think that a lot of what I tweet has the potential to create some ripples of goodness in the world which might lead to some positive change and in some small way make the world a slightly better place to live. I'd like to have the ability to turn those ripples into waves. Secondly, I really want to make a living from twitter. I feel very grateful that I have been able to earn a full time income from home for the past few years, right from the comfort of my PC, but it's still not ideal... I still have to do stuff I don't really want to be doing, speak to people throughout the day I don't want to speak to, etc. The usual chores. Since twitter has always been something I enjoy using anyway and have used it for years even though it's made me next to no money at all, it seems to make sense to make a living from it if possible... Isn't that the dream? And I've kind of decided (maybe somewhat arbitrarily) that the follower base required to comfortably make a significant income without having to rely on secondary list-building and hustling would be 1 million But I've come to realise over the years that people don't reach that magic million threshold simply by posting interesting and entertaining tweets... Those rarefied heights are reserved for people who've done something great in the real world. Now, don't get me wrong... I think I lived a pretty eventful life in the animal liberation and road protest movements, as a traveller, as a musician... But we can't live on the glories of the past and nowadays I try to live a quiet and uneventful life as much as possible, which is just how I like it. I'm no longer involved in direct action, giving public talks or TV appearances. So, it's taken some time and a fair bit of imagination to come up with my grand plan for Twitter domination lol Actually, there is a third reason... I'm not immune to the ambitions of the Ego, which imagines it will be somehow more important in some way with a million followers (yep, egos are stupid!) The question is, given the choice between my comfortable humdrum day-to-day life and the effort and sacrifice needed to fulfil that plan, which will win out? I'll keep you posted. |