July 24th 2008
PETA Goes Up Against The Dark Knight For Dog Abuse Scene
Filed under: animals, film-tv, movies — parrish @ 9:35 am
A few days ago Ecorazzi reported that PETA had released a list of their top ten most animal-friendly superheros. What I didn’t tell you (because I thought it was kinda silly) was that PETA was also pissed that a certain scene in The Dark Knight showed Batman beating a dog…that was about to attack the hell out of him.
We got a tip from one of our loyal readers who spoke with Christine Doré the author of the PETA piece about the film. Dore said, “Basically, while I personally thought it was a fantastic movie, it was a little disappointing, that part of it. I think, you know, that it’s funny that this superhero genius that everyone loves, who has all these fantastic gadgets, who never uses guns, that he doesn’t have access to a tranquilizer or other deflecting device.” Our tipster tried to get more juice, but was quickly rerouted to PETA’s official media department. Damn the man!
OK, so now it’s my turn to talk about this. I think it sucks that rottweilers get a bad rap. I wish they didn’t and I wish there weren’t so many euthanized each year. That said, I consider myself a solid 7 out of 10 on the animal rights scale and that scene didn’t offend me in the least. I believe the rule (correct me if I’m wrong vegans) is that violence towards animals is ONLY okay for self-defense. I love animals, but if I had a huge ass, scary Rottweiler centimeters away from destroying my face I just might have to swing too. I guess I worry about everyone (especially in the animal rights movement) being a little too sensitive about EVERYTHING. It was 2 seconds…in one scene…in an awesome movie…where like everyone gets the crap beat out of them.
Hey, but that’s just me! What do you think readers? Should Batman join Michael Vick in jail? Chime in and tell us what you think.
thanks: bloggasm.com
Yea, I agree. As I was watching that scene, I knew there would be some backlash. But honestly, WTF is Batman supposed to do? It would be lame if he whipped out some Bat-looking doggie treats to distract the pooches.
Sure, the director could have done without the dogs, but they were inserted into the plot and were there for obvious dramatic effect — as protectors of the Joker.
Whenever there’s a part in a movie where an animal gets hurt or dies, it totally tugs on my heartstrings. But I totally agree that there shouldn’t be this kind of backlash about that scene, and there were even a couple quips made early on in the movie about trying to make the batsuit more resistant to dog bites. So he clearly didn’t want to hurt the things. But dang, those were some big mean doggies.
Why wasn’t there a back lash to the fact that the last Batman movie showed Batman enslaving hundreds of bats to make his cover for a get away. Those bats didn’t chose to help him they were summoned with a high frequency bat whistle. I didn’t see the back lash there. Why isn’t anyone defending the poor helpless bats that were taking gunfire in the film? It is just a movie people…
They cry about everything. I hate P.E.T.A. and i love animals, peta just do things the wrong and annoying way.
If “Christian Bale” were beating dogs…I’d be pissed off…but since it was “Batman”…PETA needs to let this go. I’m sure that “no animals were harmed in the making of this film.” Fight real life battles for animals…not fictional ones. Bale is a vegetarian and his “Batman” costume was pleather, not leather…Give him points for those things.
I had no idea that Bale’s costume was pleather. GO BATMAN!
I think PETA does a fantastic job of bringing up examples of cruelty when they ACTUALLY EXISTS in REAL LIFE. Where they lose the majority of their credibility is when they go after ridiculous things like this. What is the lesson to be learned from this scene in Batman? What is the greater significance of them pointing this out?
If i all of a sudden became a crime fighting super hero, i’ll make sure to treat attack dogs with more respect?!? Come on.
I didn’t hear them say anything when the dog in I Am Legend was killed “Mike Vick” style…oh yeah, because it was a movie about zombie dogs.
PETA is rediculous.
Oopsies, I was so flabbergasted reading this that I spelled ridiculous wrong.
Christian Bale is not a vegetarian. Supposedly he does not eat red meat but he (again, supposedly) ate a can of tuna a day while cutting down for the Machinist.
Actually let me follow up to my last comment and say, if you have any reliable sources to show he’s veggie, we’d all like to see them. After the previous story on this blog about that, I searched around a bit and found no good evidence that he was vegetarian and some (also not so good) evidence that he’s not.
haha one of those rottweilers is my aunts dog… pretty sure its a movie and no one actually beat the dogs so i dont see what the big deal is.
Take into consideration the type of mentality it takes to get excited over a Batman movie in the first place.
Joan — You obviously did not see “Batman Begins”. Without that viewing, I can understand why you might think The Dark Knight would be nothing to get excited over considering how bad the previous old-school films were. (The original “Batman” excluded…)
For real! Joan, I want to be Batman like thiiiiiiiiiiiis bad!
It’s pretty funny that Peta, of all people, would complain about a dog being hit in a movie.
Why?
Because in 2006, they killed 97% of the animals they took in. In 2007, there was some improvement - they killed 92% of the animals they took ownership of at their office in Norfolk (we don’t call it a shelter). They have to file their numbers each year with the State of Virginia.
How would they feel about a movie where somebody pretended they were going to place dogs in new homes, picked them up at a shelter, killed them in the van outside, then dumped their bodies behind a Piggly Wiggly?
Peta people did this, didn’t even deny it and were ultimately convicted of littering. Makes me sick.
Their defense? They ‘owned’ the animals so could do with them as they liked.
I’m surprised anyone pays any attention at all to the animal killing hypocrites at Peta.
Ok I’ve seen many movies but never seen one single batman film (crazy eh?)
With that being said…. hmmm I haven’t seen the scene.. but it sounds as if it was just in self defense. The thing is kids see this and might think it’s ok to punch the neighbor’s dog who barks at them (mine barks at everyone but would hurt no one) so while I think it woulda been cool if he could have frozen the dog I don’t know if I’d be offended by it… but can’t we just leave out harming animals in films whether it’s in self defense or not? Oh and the thing is Rotweilers then get a bad rap for being mean to boot. Leave em’ out of the film altogether… Then the dog doesn’t get a bad rap nor get beat for no reason. sound good?
Chrisjs…there are many websites that say Bale is a veggie…most recently ecorazzi itself:
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/07/22/the-dark-knight-is-also-a-vegetarian/
‘The Machinist’ was filmed many years ago…and I don’t know Bale personally…so I can’t speak to how accurate this info is now.
As far as the dog scene in the film…”Batman” had no other recourse than to defend himself…The dogs weren’t simply barking or growling at him…they were attacking him…All a moot point since it’s just a film anyway.
This is just ridiculous.
*facepalm*
it’s the penguin and catwoman. ive seen this movie. they want to turn the public against the bat.
Reference the scene, one of the dogs is from our Schutzhund Club (3 Shires) in the UK. The only cruelty was the eight days of over indulgence eveyone spent on set. The dogs loved it, they are pretty tough dogs but the filming made the playing look very violent.
Mark H…
Go Schutzhund! But be careful PETA probably thinks that form of training is cruel to dogs even though they love it and can really thrive off of it.
I’m vegan and an animal rights activist.
That said, I saw the movie and I loved it. The dogs were ATTACKING Batman!! What was he supposed to do?? PETA is being ridiculous and wasting everyone’s time, including their own. They really do engage in a lot of perfectly good campaigns, and then every so often they have to get upset about something like this.
I always cringe when I see animals getting hurt in films, just a natural response for an animal lover. But this a movie, and there are professionals on set handling the dogs and everyone works together to make sure no one gets hurt. Haha, what else was Batman supposed to do against those dogs? While PETA is wasting their time complaning about dogs getting “beaten” in a film, there are animals out there that REALLY are getting beaten. I really wish that PETA would get their act together and get their priorities straight, instead of constantly looking for ridicoulous ways to gain publicity that always seems to work against them.
On a sidenote, TDK was a 10/10.
I was a little disappointed, I am sure in shooting the movie he did not harm them. What bothered me more was that they were trained to be vicious for that movie (or perhaps they used someones guard dogs but still its inhumane to make animals like that.)
First Erin I don’t mean to be rude but I really don’t think you should comment on the movie or scene since you have not seen the movie. Your point is just very confusing especially to those that might have not seen the movie yet. I think PETA is overreacting. It’s not like Batman is real and those dogs attacked him. He even had bites marks although fake BECAUSE IT WAS A MOVIE!
Instead of “he had to defend himself,” we need to remember that this is just a movie. Why put attack dog scenes in the movie at all?
I think they were trying to portray the Joker as a “mad dog” and needed more symbolism than the one scene of him with his head out of the car window after breaking out of prison. But nobody caught the symbolism anyway and it created unnecessary media attention, so I think it should’ve been left out.
I figured there would be backlash too…even though there is no good reason. As you said - self defense. And really, everyone gets their butt kicked in this movie - I’m practically a pacifist, but if a person comes at me and tries to attack me, I’m going to defend myself!
Just seems like a waste of time to me.
Maybe I missed something, but a hell of a lot of people (last I checked also animals) were beat/crushed/burned/shot and generally maimed in this film. So punching a dog? Really? That really offends the sensibilities? PETA’s self-publicity does more damage for them than anything their antagonists could conjure…