Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Tale of Forbidden Love


This video, with a whopping ~1,000 views, has got a bit of attention within the zoo community.  So in an effort to break semi-permanently from my hiatus, I am going to talk about it.

A brief synopsis: A man, in a voice-over, talks about his romantic love for his dog, who looks to be a golden lab for you canine aficionados out there.  It's all very sweet, quite melancholy with a bit of humour to it, and though the kissing scene has been noted even by several dog lovers I know/read as really weird and awkward, its heart seems to be in the right place as this couple reclines in simple enjoyment of their secret romance.  In the end, though, come the police and misguided animal welfare activists to take away the pooch, before a woman walking her dog proclaims the man a "dog fucker" followed by a cut to the credits.  The film isn't long, though, so I still recommend you watch it so you can understand what I'm about to say about it.

I know I'm kind of an inflammatory guy; my harsh remarks against COMING SOON (which, by the way, does turn out to be a total hoax; the website for EFA was built after the video and the organization itself does not exist originally, so there) got me my first external links.  But I'm not going to completely tear apart Forbidden Love.  It does paint a picture of a scene not significantly departed from reality.  It shows a mutual, loving relationship that, if a little, almost imperceptibly strange sometimes, seems legitimate enough.  Most importantly, it depicts a story of romance that is inherently tragic right from the beginning: something that is misunderstood, forcibly covert, and inevitably doomed, and tries to tug at the heartstrings of the viewers and gain their sympathy.  Overall, for the majority of the film, it at least resembles a piece I might show a visually-oriented and empathetic person who is critical of zoophilia.

But then there is the ending.  The ending that makes you realize that this is not a film made to actually break new barriers, or challenge mindsets or educate or whatever the above might imply.  It was made entirely for the sake of art, and in this case, the genre is a very dry and hollow comedy that adores its own internal irony: after all the amour, the suspense, the pleading and the heartbreak, there comes an old lady scowling and accusing with the utmost exaggerated blatancy, "Dog fucker!" while her tiny puppy hides behind her legs, and the credits roll to a strange peppy tune.  The intent is to make fun of the rest of the film, and to make fun of the audience in doing so: to say, "Hey, you weren't just feeling sorry for an animal abuser, were you?  Sick!" To emphasize this profanity, there are the variety of archaic images depicting zooerasty flashing on the screen as the credits roll, which nearly everyone expressing themselves in the comments noticed.  As far as the irony goes, I feel that it for the most part went over the heads of the audience, although a few do catch it and even the publisher on YouTube (who was not involved in the creation of the film) places it in the category of "Comedy".

So personally, I feel that this video is not the big break that some have seen it as.  Yes, it puts zoophilia on the table, but at its core, even if it goes unnoticed, it still approaches it in the same way it always is: as the butt of a joke.  Between that and documentaries with nothing but lies, or the wrong sorts of people represented, we have a long way to go before zoos are ever given anything that can be called a fair chance in mass media.  But that's just my opinion.

8 comments:

  1. Just wondering if you had seen this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNMq8XS4LhE
    More on the comical side but have found it's a good way to spark conversation with friends on the subject

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    1. Much more on the comical side, yes, and as far as I can see is just about bestiality: a perverted farmer out looking for a sexy woman and thinking, well, this animal could do in a pinch! In my experience, jokes don't tend to spark very productive conversation. The subject can move to zoophilia from morality questions, especially regarding animal abuse, talk about paraphilias, sexual rights, whatever. It's very easy, because for many, zoosexuality is what people turn to in conversation when they need something to disdain that they assume will never be defended. If you're to defend it then, it's best to do so in a legitimate discussion rather than trying to defend, well, a joke.

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  2. I think i'm seeing it in a different way. I didn't see it as "The sheep will do", more of a "beauty's in the eye of the beholder" type thing. The farmer sees the animals in the same way "normal" people see attractive woman. Think that is why in the police station at the end they went with the less than attractive female police. while the video itself is more about the beastiality side of things it still allows for conversation on the subject. But hey, I could be reading it wrong.

    I'm sure you have talked about this somewhere, but what are your thoughts on when people compare zoophilia to gay rights?

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    1. Hm, I didn't see it that way because beauty didn't seem to be the topic at hand, but rather sensuality: the man was just out for sex and was seeing animals acting quite innocuously as highly sexualized beings.

      I personally compare zoophilia to gay rights probably far more than I ought to, and I'm surprised no one has, at least publicly, torn me apart for it. As far as the morality goes, I see no difference between a consesual anthrosexual relationship -- whether gay or straight -- and a consensual zoosexual relationship, and not unlike the gay community we have existed unfairly as the object of great confusion and disdain for a long time.

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  3. Personally I didn't see the original video as in any way self-deprecating the zoophilic relationship that was shown. I saw it as "you just have to laugh at how oblivious humanity is to the truth behind zoophilia." And then the credits rolled, and there were examples indicating sex between humans and animals for thousands of years prior, thus re-emphasizing the stupidity of humanity's current bias against it.

    So I guess, like any art, interpretations differ.

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    1. I think with the music and colour at the end, there's no way it could be interpreted as anything but an attempt at humour. But yes, there is certainly nothing stopping anyone from interpreting it how they will.

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  4. It was obviously intended to end with humor, but humor directed where? To me it was directed at the irony of the situation, and how everything was going wrong for the poor guy and the narrowmindedness of humanity... not lololol that guy's a dog mongler.

    Reading the director's notes, it also sounded like he was more wanting to make people think than to just mock someone. Nobody spends time lighting romance scenes that carefully just to set up a joke. ;)

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    1. Hm, that just really doesn't strike me as anything that could potentially be humorous in favour of the man. Especially given that this does happen, and it's anything but funny however it's construed.

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