For the past few weeks I¡¯ve been having flashbacks of a video that a vegan acquaintance posted on Facebook. Shot on a hidden camera, it depicted hundreds of fluffy male chicks getting conveyed into an industrial grinder, their punishment for being deemed surplus to requirements. Omelets haven¡¯t tasted the same since.
There are many cruelties involved in commercial food production, though only a few of them seem to garner widespread news coverage. When Louie Psihoyos¡¯ 2009 documentary ¡°The Cove¡± focused international ire on the annual dolphin drive hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, supporters of the practice were quick to argue, ¡°Yeah, but look at all the unsavory stuff you guys do to put food on your ³Ù²¹²ú±ô±ð²õ.¡±
This is one of the principal arguments advanced in ¡°Behind ¡®The Cove,¡¯ ¡± first-time director Keiko Yagi¡¯s rebuttal. ¡°The Cove¡± was shamelessly one-sided but brilliantly wrought, told with the propulsive energy of a heist movie. Yagi¡¯s film, an opportunistic mulch of moral relativism, revisionism and obfuscation, can feel more like scrolling through a YouTube comment thread.
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