Animals used in Entertainment: Cheap Laughs?

A recent car advert features cars driving out from under a tent, with fan fare music and streamers. OK, just another normal car advert right? Well, no, unfortunately Dodge decided that to make the advert even more ‘exciting’ they had to use a ‘monkey’ in the advert. Someone should have pointed out that in fact, chimps, as this was the animal they used in the advert, are apes.

The chimp appears dressed up in an Elvis style suit and is on the screen for a total of 3 seconds, just to walk on, and push a plunger. His appearance is the punch line of the advert, but was completely unnecessary.



In another advert, Old Navy is advertising their new jeans range, the advert features human mannequins having their jean style fortune told. At the end of the advert a capuchin bangs a gong. Again, the capuchin is only on the screen for 3-4 seconds.



There really is no need for animals, including chimps and other primates to be used for adverts and films. Technology is so advanced now that real animals do not need to be used in film.

Everyone knows orang utans are endangered, usually when you see a picture of an orang utan, it is attached to an organisation, and it is a similar story with gorillas. However, a lot of people do not realise that chimps are endangered, mainly because, especially in the west, chimps are seen on TV advertising products.

In the UK, possibly the most famous chimps are the Tipps family, from the PG Tips adverts, which ran from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. These adverts were inspired by London Zoo’s chimp tea parties. The adverts featured chimps moving pianos, motor racing, usually with a slap stick part of the advert that ended with the chimps dressed as humans having a cup of tea at the end. Thankfully, PG Tips has ended these adverts, and now has a comedian, Jonny Vegas, and a stuffed chimp called Monkey instead.

Chimps and wild animals used in entertainment, in circuses, films, adverts and photography sessions are ripped from their mothers from a very young age, could you imagine trying to train a fully grown chimp? If he doesn’t want to wear that hat, he won’t wear that hat. The psychological damage is phenomenal, and usually ends tragically, when the chimp is too old to be used any more he is usually discarded at a roadside zoo or turned into a pet.

Times have changed, and there are now more humane ways of training animals to do things, but the fact still remains that physical punishment is a well used method of training animals; you just have to look at PETA's campaign on Ringling Brothers circus elephants to see that.

The fact still remains that these are wild animals, and they should be given the opportunity to behave as such, not forced to act out silly dramas, even if it is a 30 minute program, or a 3 second advert, the animals will be going home to live in a cage until the next time they are needed, they are not given the opportunity to act as they would in the wild.

So, yes, maybe it doesn’t physically harm a chimp to push a plunger down for a few seconds, but the journey he would have taken from being born and being cradled by his mother, to a young chimp acting in an unknown environment would have caused him cataclysmic damage. The concept of being demeaned is a very human one, but when dressing animals up and parading them around leads people to be uneducated and misinformed about the basic needs of an animal, advertisers need to address what is really important; getting a cheap laugh, or business ethics.

Why not send an email to Dodge and Old Navy, politely asking them not to use wild animals to promote their products again?

Besides, you can still get a laugh with a man in a gorilla suit playing Phil Collins.