Hollywood loves stories about Hollywood. They love stories that portray movies as a transcendental artform — if they had their way, every single picture would have a scene of a character staring at a movie screen, transfixed. There are some stories about the movie business, however, that Hollywood doesn’t enjoy telling. We mean the dirty ones, the true ones, the ones they cover up. Like the stories of how…
The Studios and American Humane Joined Forces to Cover Up Animal Deaths
We don’t know how much you personally care about animal welfare. Still, none of us like to be misled, and when we hear that the American Humane Association (AHA) monitors productions, we think that means no animals are harmed, just like the organization’s seal of approval says. But that’s not always the case: Hollywood has had a long up-and-down history when it came to how it treated animals on set. About a decade ago, we got a fresh flood of reveals, in the wake of one HBO show killing a bunch of horses. For instance, the Hollywood Reporter obtained the following American Humane email about the tiger in The Life of Pi:
Which prompted some in the audience to ask, “Wait, weren’t the animals in Life of Pi CGI?” The answer: Many were, but no, they did use a real tiger. People also asked, “But didn’t this film say ‘No animals were harmed’ in the credits?” The answer: It did, but the AHA monitor on the scene was sleeping with a studio exec and was going to approve the film no matter what.