In one attempt to raise awareness, volunteers were packaged naked, similar to the way meat is found in the grocery store with the tagline "Meat Is Murder." The stunt garnered a lot of attention.
As well, PETA was heavily criticized for its insensitivity in its "To Animals, All People Are Nazis" ads, where holocaust victims are shown next to caged chickens.
Often, PETA is criticized for being sexist and simply exploiting women instead of animals in its "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign where celebrities pose naked.
This commercial was banned after airing in the Super Bowl in 2007.
This video contains women in lingerie rubbing themselves against vegetables with the tagline "Studies show vegetarians have better sex." I don't know what these unnamed studies are, but I can only assume they are not very credible ones, especially because how does one measure the "quality" of sex quantitatively?
All in all, it seems that PETA, who has a great goal of respecting animals, overshoots its target and promotes vegetarianism using fear and sex tactics. Vegetarianism, though widely practiced, has been argued as going against human's omnivorous nature. Sadly, PETA has become a bit of a joke amongst mainstream media and is not taken as seriously as it could be.
I agree that PETA has largely become a joke, but it goes even beyond their ridiculous campaigning. Their attempts at shock advertising to achieve their goals are not nearly as shocking as the hypocrisy within their own organization. Statistics put their kill rate at 80-90% in a given year, and in 2012 alone they are reported to have euthanized 1675 animals:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vi.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&form=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2012
So, from an advertising standpoint, is it at all ethical for them to assert that "meat is murder," when they have such high euthanization numbers in their own organization?