Harold's Barbecue

We've seen this ploy before (for instance, here).

This is a variation on the Appeal to Authority. You are meant to be swayed by this pig merely because of his alleged standing or status. Take heed of his eyeglasses—the totemic indicators of his sterling mind. Gaze into those pools of reason, wellsprings of the dispassionate love of fact. Here is a priest of rationality. If a brainy pig, of all things, has concluded that eating dead pigs is good idea, well, maybe we should pay attention.

Indeed, Harold has achieved a high enough level of intellectual development that he is able to levitate above the flames. And yet he is still lunkheaded enough to shill for a barbecue place, beckoning tirelessly to motorists in Atlanta, Georgia, for these past 60 years.

Harold, climb down from there and use that brain of yours for something worthwhile! Or at least something in your own (or your customers') self-interest. This is accomplishing nothing.

Hey! Wait a second! If you're so smart, how come you're smoking a cigar?

(Source of photo.)

Pork Palace

It is a cruel paradox. The royal suicide food animal—putative monarach—is the most powerless animal of all. Unable to stop his subjects from being killed and devoured, unable even to avoid the knife himself, his only power is the power of complicity. And he wields it like a scepter fashioned from his own bones.

As is the case with all so-called suicide food "royalty," our palace-keeper is a puppet. He looks to be more like the village idiot, his poorly rendered face hovering above his cardboard castle.

Could anything be more patronizing than the royalty conferred upon our "food" animals? Could anything be less sincere, less deferential? Why, directly above his stupid, grinning head is the careless legend "PIGS FOR SALE."

And below, one of our favorite expressions: "Farm fresh" meat. We maintain that in the pairing of those two innocent words—farm and fresh—there lurks a hateful suggestion. Namely, that dead animals can be described in the same neutral terms as fresh produce. Freshly killed: that, we could accept. But "farm fresh" meat is merely the discursive equivalent of the smiling cow, the hyper-sexual pig, the happy-go-lucky chicken.

It intends to lull and deceive.

(Thanks to Dr. Chardunk for the referral and the photo.)

The Corruption of Childhood

Just when we think suicide food cannot disgust us any more deeply, just as we adjust to a new level of contempt, we discover a fresh vein of offense. The depths to which the suicidefoodists will sink are truly unplumbed. We find the perverted barbarity of this newest discovery unfathomable.

Animals are disrespected by suicidefoodism, of course. Decency is pantsed. Good sense and logic have pies thrown in their faces. But here! Here innocence itself is slandered!

Exhibit A is the Wandoor Rabbit farm of southern India.

Look at their amiable mascot, as untroubled by his grisly fate as any suicide food. He looks to be back from his morning forage, basket brimming with produce. He might even be pointing out the benefits of farm life, perhaps offering glowing commentary such as that found on the farm's website:

"Situated in the greenery of wandoor in malappuram dist. of kerala, the climate here is best suitable for animal husbandry, fre from pollution and chaos of city. Such a climate provides healthy and disease free environment to the rabbits and pork."

Does the rabbit look familiar? Do you know any children? Have you been a child in the last 40 years? Let us refresh your memory:






These two images are from Disney's Winnie the Pooh productions. Yes, Wandoor's rabbit is Rabbit, cantankerous know-it-all of the 100 Acre Wood.

Bad enough to paint butchered animals as parties to their own slaughter, but to twist and corrupt beloved figures from childhood? To transform them into meat-apologists? This is absurd to the point of pain.

"Free from pollution and chaos"? "Healthy"? "Disease-free"? We look on and see nothing but pollution and chaos, debased health, and moral disease.






Exhibit B is Stepto's Bar-B-Q Shack.

Who is this generic pig, in his archetypal chef's garb?

Whoever he is, he makes a cheerful and wholesome mascot, doesn't he? Why, we have little difficulty identifying with him, seeing in his day-to-day concerns our own, looking to him to help us make sense of an exciting yet sometimes challenging world.

Do you have the idea, somehow, that this pig understands? That he would befriend you in an instant if he could? That he represents all that is good and industrious?

It is no surprise that you do. For, most likely, you have seen him before, not shilling for a barbecue joint, but laboring in a bakery maybe, or in a mill, or aboard a train.

For this is—yes—a standard Richard Scarry pig!





















The above images are all taken from Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?, a child's utterly charming, engaging, fair-minded introduction to the workings of society.

Now? Merely another pig hoping you'll eat more meat. (Those soured by skepticism need only attend to the peculiar mid-snout smile, the rosy cheeks, the bridge-of-the-snout wrinkles, the gibbous moon pupils, the flared ears, even the shape of the chef's hat! There can be no doubt that the barbecue pig was appropriated from Scarry's oeuvre.)

What makes this such a gut-punch is not merely the strip-mining of our childhood memories. It is that Milne's and Scarry's animals are, if not people, then certainly persons, reflecting all of the idiosyncracies, the individuality, the humanity of humans! These animals work, they play, they love, they quarrel, they contribute. But suicidefoodism cannot abide that.

We are left to wonder whether everything is up for grabs.







Addendum (12/08/07): This overseas Chicago Fried Chicken establishment is advertising not fried chicken so much as fried Big Bird.






Addendum 2 (1/06/08): It is far, far worse than we thought. And how many times can children be coaxed into eating their beloved? Answer: Eight times per package. (Photo source: Dr. dizznan.)















Addendum 3 (3/16/08): The suicidefoodists will make off with every sacred element of childhood before they're done. Here, it's Dr. Seuss's Blue Fish.













Addendum 4 (5/18/08): Granted, this one's subtle. You recognize the font, of course. It's the Walt Disney font! The look and feel of children's culture factory Disney used to pitch dogs that gather up recently shot birds! You say "stretch." We say "thorough."







Addendum 5 (8/30/08): We should never have started looking into this. Now it's Foghorn Leghorn, cherished Warner Bros. blowhard, instructing young Henery Hawk in the finer points of barbarity. "Looky heer son!" he says, "Ya gotta get yer BBQ Chicken!"













Addendum 6 (10/26/08): Ariel, the Little Mermaid, wants you to eat her crunchy, breaded remains. Or perhaps they are merely the crunchy, breaded remains of her undersea pals. (Photo source: Too Much Awesome.)









Addendum 7 (5/21/09): Happy birthday, little one! Say hello to our special guest. It's Porky Pig! You know how much you love his silly antics. Well, now that you're a big boy, you may eat him.













Addendum 8 (11/01/09): Foghorn Leghorn's still at it.










Addendum 9 (1/18/10): Another denizen of the 100 Acre Wood gets in on the act. Here's Piglet dishing out the pork. Or buying it. Or sniffing it. Or doing something with it. (Thanks to Dr. Susan for the referral.)








Addendum 10 (5/08/10): Piglet's back, this time lending his talents to a "high quality pork producer" in Greece!








Addendum 11 (6/19/10): And it's Ariel again, wishing that some handsome two-legged human-type man will truly love her. That is, eat her.

The Healthy Buffalo

Welcome, fight fans, to tonight's big bout!

In a minute, the competitors should be entering the auditorium and making their way to the…

Yes! I see the challenger—Healthy Buffalo! They call him the Prairie Powerhouse, the Plains Pummeler, the Bison Mike Tyson!

He's in purple wrist and ankle tufts tonight and that stainless steel mind-the-farmer ring. Those trademark sunglasses reflecting the glare of a thousand camera flashes. At the weigh-in just minutes ago he clocked in at a crushing 625 pounds.

I think I can grab him for a quick interview. Healthy! Over here, Healthy! Tell us, how are you feeling tonight? How do you think the fight's going to go?

"I think we all know the night's gonna go my way."

What's your strategy?

"First, I'm gonna let him tenderize me in the brisket area."

Let him tire himself out, huh?

"Tire himself out? No, no. I need tenderizing. It's vital to the process."

Sure, sure, it is. Seriously, Healthy, when you get those muscles of yours working—

"I'm glad you mentioned that. These muscles, they're leaner than beef. I might be marbleized, but my fat content is considerably lower!"

Healthy, you have a fight in only… 10 minutes. You better get your head in the game.

"Don't worry about me. I didn't train for years just to blow my big break."

That's the Healthy Buffalo I know!

"Damn straight. It all comes down to tonight. I'm gonna step into that ring and show him—show the world—who the tastiest ruminant is!"

I don't think I understand.

"This is for all the exotic livestock. Buffaloes, ostriches. Even alligators. Okay! Let's do this. Let's get buried!"

You mean you… You want to lose?

"Lose? I'm not gonna lose. I'm gonna get slaughtered out there!"

Slaughtered? But you're the Bison Mike Tyson!

"No one gets taken down harder or butchered better than Healthy Buffalo! You watching, Boar? Venison? I made it, fellas! This is it!"

I don't believe what I'm hearing! In a few minutes, you're competing for the heavyweight title, but all you can think about is—

"The Suicide Food Federation heavyweight title."

The what?

"The Suicide Food Federation title."

That's tonight? I thought that was tomorrow. Isn't today Wednesday?

"It's Thursday."

Are you sure? Okay, well. Go out there and get your brains beaten in, big guy!

"Thanks, man!"

I hope he mops the floor with you!

"Bet on it!"






Addendum (12/05/07): We have found a worthy opponent for Healthy Buffalo: Champ, the Champs Real Pit Bar-B-Q champ! Can you imagine the total lack of fireworks if these two brawlers ever faced each other?













Addendum 2 (12/22/07): Now here is the anti-fighter who should go up against Healthy Buffalo—the Mingua Brothers All Natural Beef Jerky bull! Which one will hit the canvas first?











Addendum 3 (3/08/08): Apparently, pugilist bovines occupy an established niche. (This one exists as part of some kind of game, not an icon advertising cow meat products.)









Addendum 4 (9/29/08): Let's hear it for the Pugnacious Paragon of Poultry, Champ Chicken! Of course, he's not so pugnacious that he'll, you know, fight the people who would kill and eat him. He's actually a lover victim, not a fighter. (Thanks to Dr. Holley for the referral and photo.)




Addendum 5 (1/15/10): The Cow Puncher is ready to take on every bovine palooka in the joint!












Addendum 6 (6/30/11): Cows Beefs love to box brawl...





Addendum 7 (6/30/11): ... even in jerky form.

Cluck-n-Stuff: a "what the hell?" digression

The plenary session has convened, testimony has been introduced, objections have been made, sustained, and overruled. And after all the finger-pointing and name-calling (things can get pretty heated around here), nothing has been decided. We still don't know what the hell this is. Can it properly be called suicide food? What do we do with this?

In the end, the executive committee adjudicated the matter and found Cluck-n-Stuff to be wholly contemptible, yet not satisfying the criteria of suicide food. Still, its abhorrence merits attention as another of our digressions—our sporadic series of semi-official posts—if nothing else.

What are Cluck-n-Stuff™ Beer Butt Chicken Heads? Something worse than you could ever invent on your own (without first suffering considerable head trauma). To wit: false chicken heads you insert into the gaping neck holes of the dead chickens you are cooking, after jamming open cans of beer where their anuses used to be. Do you suspect this to be another of those crazy conspiratorial vegan delusions? If only!

No, these Beer Butt Chicken Heads are all too real, not to mention vile and hauntingly pathetic.

And such a convoluted raison d'être! What need do they satisfy? What wish do they fulfill? Is it simply the suicidefoodist's dearest hope, that the animals we subject to all our diabolical contrivances are, still, somehow, in spite of it all, pleased? That their souls, at least, are unscathed, and will speak well of us in their afterworld? That we can restore them to symbolic wholeness as a means of propitiation?

Or is there something more sinister behind the C-n-S BBCHs? ("B-Bitches," for short?) Do they express nothing more poignant than the drive to mock the victims of our trespasses?

Sadly, turning to the product's creator offers little insight. (Be warned: he speaks about himself in the third person.)

"While cooking his Beer Butt Chicken and having an ice cold frosty beer he kept checking the chicken for doneness. After lifting the grill lid for the third time he decides that there is something horribly wrong with the chicken. No, it wasn’t the way the chicken was cooking; it was the way the chicken was looking. There it was just sitting there without a head; it was at that point that this man had a light bulb moment. He said, 'This chicken needs a head!' and so he went off to begin creating."

His motivations are unclear: salve for a battered conscience, offering to emissaries of another world, or cruel joke?

We've placed our bet.

Porky's Delight

Immediately on seeing Porky, something nags at us. And it's not merely the crude rendering—the too-close-together eyes, the overly angular face, the inert tongue licking in mechanical satisfaction.

No, there's something in his expression. Something we cannot quite put a finger on. Are we haunted by what we’ve seen in our never-ending campaign? Have the grisly scenes from the suicidefoodist battlefields rendered us senseless? Are we unable to see anything for what it really is?

Answers: Definitely, possibly, and who’s to say?

However, when we investigate further, the enigma begins to resolve itself.

Here is the image of Porky of a T-shirt they actually hope to sell. And here, cracks form in the veneer of Porky's supposed delight. This pig, this Porky, does not look delighted. Does he appear delighted to you? If so, you need to reacquaint yourself with the details of facial expression.

The wide eyes, the open mouth, the raised eyebrows. In your heart, in the primitive recesses of your long-ago ancestor brain, you know what you are seeing, even when you look away in dumb denial.

If you require us to support our suspicions with documentation (you noble skeptics), consider the following:














Perhaps you've seen this before. In an anthropology class, maybe. Please turn your attention to the faces circled in green and red. The green face is an archetypal depiction of delight. The red face clearly expresses terror. Return now to the image of Porky from the T-shirt. Does his expression more closely resemble the green or the red face?

With the aid of science, we have demonstrated that Porky is manifesting not happiness but fear. And yet he allows himself to be exploited, to put on the chef hat, to sit for portraits. Why? To answer, we are forced to leave the cool enclaves of science and enter the gnarled woodlands of pure conjecture.

One guesses that Porky's guilt has gotten the better of him. For too long, he has beckoned humans to make meals of his brothers. He can be complicit no longer. His death is the last, meager atonement he can offer. Does he fear the afterlife? Undoubtedly. But he knows it has to be more mild than the hell he has created for himself on earth.