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The death of animal rights

03/18/2006

Oh dear god. The Body Shop has just been aquired by Loreal, the crusaders against animal testing, the force behind ethical consuming has just said 'Actually, it's ok to harm animals, sorry, this was just a big markting thing'.

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I remember walking past a shop a few months ago and seeing t-shirts proclaiming womens rights right alongside little tampon holders that has MTV splashed all over them. The contradiction almost made me laugh. Since when did encouraging women to take of all their clothes and gyrate to bad pop songs in porn style video clips amount to female rights?

I don't know why this hit me so hard. Maybe it's because when I was young, the only company I could ever imagine wanting to work for was The Body Shop, maybe because I spent some good time reading about Anita Ruddock, and actually admired her. Maybe I'm just terrified about what will happen now, that the biggest anti animal testing brand in the world has basically just commenced animal testing. Maybe it's because that everything that starts out so well, seems to get corrupted and become the opposite of what it was.

I don't even want to talk about it. Go read it at Body Shop: Extreme Makeover (I stole the picture from there too)

UPDATE: I posted a comment on Anita Roddick's 'blog'. I had to sign up three times to different areas of the site and to acces the video interviews of her talking about Loreal. I don't think I left a mean comment, just one asking if she could, for the sake of all of us who have supported her over the years and now feel slightly hurt, give us a reason why something like this would get her indorsement. - the comment may still be over to the right on my coComment recent conversations. Anyway, of course, comments are regulated over there, so it wasn't published straight away, however I went back today and three new comments have been published, all gushing over how much they 'trust' Anita. Mine was obviously not 'pro Anita' enough. It's a weird feeling when you see the worst aspects of PR in action. For a self proclaimed activist to silence other caring members of society is a little strange and does make me think it actually was all marketing all along. When you see yourself being censored, you wonder how one sided the conversation really is. The funny part about it was that Tim was always skeptical and I was (for once in my life) NOT. I'm sure there is a lesson there.

11:45 Posted in consumerism | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: Politics

Comments

It's no stealing, don't worry. I think it conveys the message, so better spread it out.

Posted by: gillo | 03/18/2006

I don't agree with you about religion but I agree with you about The Body Shop. It's a pity that people give up their principles for money.

Posted by: Lisa | 03/21/2006

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