Celebrity and (Non-)Veganism

Ecorazzi announced some of this years annual VegNews awards winners today, including that Ellen DeGeneres won for Favorite Celebrity readers' pick (you can read it here). Aside from the fact that it seems that you cannot be an American celebrity and not endorse and / or shed your clothes for PETA in recent years, I've always really wondered what the sense is in attributing any sort of significance to public figures who decide to flirt with animal advocacy while sending mixed messages about animal exploitation. Unapologetic meat-eater Oprah Winfrey, for instance, comes to mind, having won PETA's 2008 "Person of the Year" award.

Things become even more problematic (and often confusing) when veganism is thrown into the mix. For instance, DeGeneres, who was also honoured by HSUS earlier this year, may have won readers choice for "Favorite Celebrity", but she's a spokesperson and model for Cover Girl, a company owned by Proctor & Gamble that both uses animal products and engages in animal testing. So, DeGeneres, who is currently profiting from the exploitation of animals, somehow gets a few back pats from the odd welfarist organisation or two and suddenly vegetarians and vegans the world over assume that she's an exemplar of sorts. We're also left with the general public viewing her non-veganism as being vegan.

Ecorazzi's story on this also features a link to their own Top 5 Vegan Celebrities list from this past June. DeGeneres, the "vegan" who profits from animal exploitation, is on it. So is "vegan" actress Ginnifer Goodwin, who came under fire this year for wearing an assortment of animal products for a magazine photo shoot for a piece about (wait for it...) her veganism. Then there's NBA star and PETA supporter John Salley, a "vegan" who went vegan for health reasons and whose activism involves promoting vegetarianism. Then? Alicia Silverstone, another solid PETA supporter who is now making the rounds promoting her new book, The Kind Diet, in which she subcategorises veganism into three levels, one of which includes eating animal products. Then there's actress Emily Deschannel, yet another vocal PETA (and HSUS) supporter who, when interviewed, mostly focuses on the environmental reasons to be vegan. (Not that there's anything wrong with promoting all pluses of abstaining from eating animals, but is it too much to ask that these self-professed vegan celebs actually talk about the problem at hand -- animal exploitation?)

In short, these supposed vegan celebrities are touted as exemplars of veganism. Most of them are vocal and public supporters of welfarist animal organizations that don't promote veganism as any sort of necessary moral baseline in advocating for animals and some of them have otherwise additionally misinterpreted and misrepresented veganism. Is there any wonder that the general public is confused? At the end of the day, should vegans really be applauding these celebrities outing themselves as vegans (i.e. regardless of their confusing things) since "it brings veganism into the mainstream", or should we actually be concerned (or in my case, sort of irritated) that these folks are just further warping people's understanding of what it means to take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously?

Wanna Smell Like a Fast Food Restaurant?

I was just getting caught up in Ecorazzi stories over lunch, when I stumbled upon this one about Burger King marketing a meat-scented body spray. No, seriously. The Ecorazzi story includes a link to where you can order it (and you should check out the user comments after following that link if you want to get a good idea of how disgusting the stuff truly is). Blech.

Speaking of DawnWatch.com

The Winston-Salem Journal's website recently reprinted a Washington Post interview with Karen Dawn, founder of DawnWatch, an e-newsletter / website that raises awareness of animal rights reporting in the media. Dawn's recently published a book called Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals. The book has an official website, complete with a video of numerous celebrity endorsements. More information on the book and another interview with Dawn were featured on Ecorazzi last Tuesday. I hope to get my hands on a copy of it soon. It sounds like a really upbeat and informative book.