PETA vs Pokémon?

On page 8 of issue 7of MyM magazine (November 2012) there is an news article about the animal rights group PETA releasing a spoof video game of Pokémon, on the belief that the game teaches children to tolerate animal abuse.

The article in question from page 8 of Issue 7 of MyM magazine (November 2012)

The game, PETA’s Pokémon Black and Blue (a play of words of the then recently released Pokémon Black and White Version 2 games), is an interesting angle on the game. Instead of a trainer played by you battling other trainer’s Pokémon, you play a seriously abused Pokémon who battle’s his/her trainer (who are the game’s human characters as depicted as they were the villains in a slasher film) for freedom. Now, I do not like the idea of people abusing animals for entertainment purposes, but I do know that not every single form of entertainment that involves an animal is out right abuse. But this story has intrigued me. As a kid who first developed an interest in the science of biology and ecology thanks to the Pokémon TV series (I don’t play much games), I’m interested right now on why an animal rights group like PETA would look at the Pokémon games in such a negative way.

According to the article’s quotes from PETA, they say that “Pokémon games paint rosy pictures of things that are actually horrible.” In other words, they think that the games make children learn to tolerate the abuse of animals by making kids battle virtual creatures against each other. It’s the same argument that says that violet video games, like Grand Theft Auto, encourage violence in the real world. I can understand why people would think that, but I know that not every single teenage boy who has played such a game later went out to get a loaded gun and… (I stop here). The point is that the few people who would do it through ideas they got from video games are the subject of other influences (e.g. social isolation). Children are not the moronic simpletons the people who say such arguments say they are. They are not “monkeys” who “see” something and then “do” it. One of the earliest lessons a child gets is to tell the difference between fantasy and reality (well, I assume it is). Children can learn early that what they see on TV, films, comics, books and video games are all make believe (except the stuff that’s true). I can tell from personal experience (been a high-functioning autistic child) that children can tell when something is real and something is make believe. When I watch the Pokémon cartoon, I don’t see poor defenseless creatures been forced to fight against each other, I see imaginary creatures been battled. Although, when I watch the Pokémon cartoon, I can see animals been taken out of their habitats against their will and treated badly…. by terrible trainers, like Paul from the Sinnoh region, or the likes of Team Rocket. I see good trainers, like Ash, who do care for the wellbeing of their Pokémon and others. But this PETA stance against the franchise has put a spanner in the works for anyone who has lived with Pokémon since they first appeared in 1996. It has questioned the core beliefs of anyone who has become a carer for nature (including members of animal rights groups, like PETA) because of the environmental messages Pokémon seem to represent.

It’s like PETA has reduced the game of Pokémon to, basically, a virtual version of cock fighting (don’t snigger!). I can imagine that in the ancient history of the cartoon universe where Pokémon room the Earth with “regular” life forms (the aardvarks and zebras and so on) the battling of these critters was the Unova/Kanto/Johto etc.’s version of cock fighting (you still sniggering?). Most human beings back then didn’t look at animals as another form of being that has intelligence and feelings. They just saw them as autonomous things that happen to react to things and each other, which happen to be (if heated over a fire) editable. It’s a throwback to the days of cavemen. A time when survival meant taking what you can or else you die. In that world there was almost no time to pause and think about stuff, such as what is lightning or why are leaves green. In such as world, the idea of an animal having human-like characteristics couldn’t have been conceived, hence their mass mistreatment in history. It was only until the 19^th century, thanks to mechanized farming providing all our food, that the science of biology could discover and ponder such an idea, courteously of the likes of Charles Darwin. Because of this more recent development in our history, the issue of animal rights came about. Thanks to campaigners, cock fighting (and other forms of clear-animal-abusing entertainment) are illegal and that the only things been tried on mice in labs is medicines (as human volunteers are near-impossible to get). I can imagine the same thing happening in the Pokémon world. During their Age of Enlightenment, Pokémon owners begin to treat their Pokémon with respect, and over time as the knowledge of Pokémon medicine improves the days of severe Pokémon battles ended. Soon the first organized competitions happen and the rest is history. (When did this blog become a history lesson?)

In the article, PETA has said that “if its organization existed in the fictional land of Unova, its motto would be that Pokémon are not ours to use or abuse. It argued that the message children should be getting is that these animals exist for their own reasons.” Considering that PETA was founded in 1980, by then the world of Pokémon had already moved on form the extreme abuses of ancient times. I can imagine that their education system has the “Pokémon are not objects” lesson as part of the nursery curriculum, so they wouldn’t have been a need for PETA to set up a base there…. or they should, considering the behavior of certain trainers and organizations. I do love animals, but I do know that the real natural world is a cruel place. But the cruelty of a minority of people (i.e. poachers) can be more extreme than any violent experience any animal could experience in the wild. Children can tell that Wile E. Coyote is a fictional character that suffers slapstick bad luck, but its thanks to the undertones of  non-slapstick cartoons, like Pokémon, that children learn the truth about the real grown-up world. I can credit Pokémon in shaping my views on the treatment of animals and the environment and for making me study it. With this PETA parody game, I can understand the reason why… when I watched the cartoon, I was more interested in the drama between the characters and creatures (I didn’t care much of the battles (hence, why I didn’t play the games).

On another note from the article, PETA has had a problem with Mario wearing the Tanooki costume that first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1988. They think this promotes fur. They are too quick to judge. To all we know, Mario may have been wearing a suit made of synthetic fur. Although, on the other hand, PETA would be angry about that as well, considering the millions of innocent ancient sea creatures that were killed and crushed into a paste through millions of years of seismic activity to make the crude oil that made that synthetic fur.

By the way, I did plan for my first post to be about why the colour blue keeps you awake at night, but this story surprised me so much that I had to comment about it, so thanks PETA (and the people of MyM magazine) for prompting me to write this blog. Things are going to get very interesting in deed.