Movie Advocates Warmly for Dogs but Fails Other Animals

Last night, CBS aired the Hallmark holiday special A Dog Named Christmas. I wasn't holding out naive hope for a vegan message, but I was crossing my fingers that the movie would be more consistently pro-animal than most and at least wouldn't include some of what it did. It was a dog-friendly film, absolutely. A film with wildlife-friendly moments, sure. But the movie's dialogue pushed inaccurate notions of farmed animals and a view of them as lesser animals. The film doesn't just advocate for dogs; it advocates for dogs by elevating them above other animals, by categorizing other animals as less special than dogs.

The movie is just one more example of the frustrating way animal issues tend to play out in mainstream conversations. Too often, when a venue or vehicle has the potential to be positive for all animals, it falls far short and often reinforces the very perspectives that hurt our society's most exploited animals. Advocacy for the animals with whom we already feel kinship is easy and sometimes even profitable; real advocacy for -- or even honesty about -- animals most would rather eat than advocate for is still something that consistent animal advocates have a difficult time getting mainstream media, traditional and new, to support or even pay significant attention to.

But let's move back to this movie specifically:

The film centers around a young man whom the synopsis describes as "developmentally challenged" and a dog he adopts and names Christmas. Twenty-year-old Todd, who lives on a farm with his parents, is gentle with and sensitive to animals, regularly rescuing injured birds and other small free-living animals and speaking gently to the cows on the farm. With the help of his mother, Todd convinces his father to let him temporarily adopt a dog over the holidays. Todd also sweetly takes on the task of trying to match up the dogless homes of loved ones with homeless dogs, determined to find foster homes for all the local shelter's 30-some dogs.

But in typical Hallmark-movie fashion, Dad has built up dog-resistant walls around his heart because of how heartbroken and traumatized he was years ago by the loss of a couple dogs he intensely loved. Of course, we all know from the start how this is going to go -- Dad's defenses will eventually come down, emotions will flow, and he will again find himself in love with a dog.

But how the father thinks of, relates to, and talks about dogs isn't the problem. It's how he (and thus, the film) misrepresents farmed animals, reinforcing the untruths that encourage people to love dogs while they abuse, disregard, and kill other animals.

Here are some of the troubling scenes, omissions, and bits of dialogue of which I took note while watching:

* When Todd first raises the dog issue, his father retorts, "This is a farm. We raise animals for a purpose, and that purpose is to make a living." In other words, dogs don't belong here because here, animals are only for killing and making money. It's acceptable for Todd's mother to keep horses only because she sells their babies each year and makes money from them that way.

* Early on, Todd must release a hawk he has been helping recover from injury. He becomes emotional when the bird flies away, out of his cage. But his father comforts him, assuring Todd he did a good thing -- the bird can be "his own master" again now, Dad explains. This was a nice scene and sentiment, but it's one of the scenes that set up the arbitrary divisions: the hawk deserves to be free and be his own master; the handful of hens the family keeps penned up do not.

* The setting is an idyllic Old MacDonald-style farm. For a "working farm" from which the family makes its living through "livestock," there seem to be very few animals in view. It looks to be fantasy -- the stuff of the fictional picture books we read our children, not the stuff of reality.

* At the very moment that Todd's older, dismayed siblings are talking around how Christmas the dog will be killed if he's returned to the shelter, Todd asks, "Mom, may I have some more ham?" The family is stressing over the thought of the dog being killed while they eat an animal with remarkable similarities to dogs.

* And finally, when Todd's dad is still resisting the idea of bringing a dog home over the holidays, he laments to his wife that Todd will get attached and not want to return the companion. Todd's mom answers that Todd has raised 4-H calves and sheep and sold them. And Dad counters that the current situation would be different because "livestock don't get into a boy's heart the way a dog does."

This remark made me cringe perhaps more than anything else in the movie. That we humans can't bond with other animals, animals who have the same emotions and capacities as dogs, the way we bond with dogs is totally untrue. Which animals we adopt and which animals we eat is based on tradition, not on how we could connect with them if we allowed ourselves to. Whether we can bond with typically farmed animals, or whether they can get into our hearts, isn't in question -- the problem is that we close off our hearts to them, just like Todd's father has tried to close off his heart to dogs. This film reinforces those closed hearts by endorsing the idea that some animals are undeserving of our affection and by telling us that we are able to bond with (and should adopt) dogs because they are different from those other lesser animals.

I realize that this movie was based on a published book. And I realize that it indeed reflects the mindset of farming families. But that's the trouble -- I want to see books and movies challenging that mindset hit the mainstream. I want to see books and movies about people like Harold, about people like Cheri, books and films that reveal how misguided that ingrained point of view is and how misunderstood farmed animals are, even by the well-intentioned people who believe they know them best.

The bonds shown between people and dogs in this production were sweet, and I am so glad that the film and the brief PSA-style message afterward promoted shelter adoption. I do want to see films and books that help dogs -- they are as deserving as farmed animals of our respect and love and help. But movies such as this don't encourage us to respect, consider, and love our fellow animals in general -- they tell us to respect, consider, and love specifically dogs, in part because they are not "livestock" and are thus somehow more worthy. I continue to long for a day when I can look at mainstream "pro-animal" films, television programs, books, and Web sites and see a truly pro-animal, pro-compassion message for all animals.

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