I was reading through this week’s Science magazine and came across a particularly interesting opinion piece on the portrayal of chimpanzees in the media. Written by seven people, including someone named “J. Goodall,” the piece describes concerns that the numbers of chimpanzees seen on TV ads, in zoos, as pets and in the media in general undermine efforts to make people aware that chimps are an endangered species. It describes the portrayal of chimps in the media as “inappropriate” and as turning them into “primitive subhumans.” A statistically significant number of people surveyed reported that they didn’t classify chimps as endangered (compared to other apes) because they saw them on TV all the time.
Clearly this is an issue that is very near and dear to people who study apes and who are fighting for their conservation, and of course the preservation of endangered species should be important to everybody. We do need to come to an accurate, enlightened and helpful view of their condition, and our relationship to them. But I wonder if there are other aspects of this argument that need to be thought through.
First, there is the rather incredible accusation that the way we see things on television isn’t in line with reality. Come on. Never in the history of home entertainment has there been a time when “reality” and “television” have been so closely intertwined as they are today.
Second, there is the question of the effect that corporate advertising has on the animal populations that they portray. There are about 41,000 species on the endangered species list (depending on which one you read). Of those, many have been portrayed as talking or sentient in the media at least once. There may indeed be a correlation. Has anyone looked at the population of the monito gecko over the course of the GEICO campaign?
Third, does dressing chimpanzees up in clothing for television commercials affect the extent to which people realize how endangered they are in the wild? The research of these authors says yes. But isn’t it possible to know that chimps are endangered and simultaneously be able to laugh at them in a suit? More seriously, doesn’t a lack of societal knowledge of the issue actually represent a failure on the part of conservation societies to put chimps on the same level as gorillas and orangutans? More people have to get the word out. Someone should blog about it or something. Even better, someone should do a TV spot about it. I recommend dressing a chimp up as an anchorman and having him talk about it as a news story. People go for that kind of crazy thing.
Fourth, and most important: is the dressing up of chimps demeaning to them? Having had no personal interactions or relationships with primates outside of my own species (sadly) then I have no real perspective on this issue. I think it would be good for them. Clothing would move them up a few pegs on the evolutionary ladder, wouldn’t it? The guys on Planet of the Apes seemed pretty happy about it. I wonder if we’ve taught any apes to be embarrassed when they walk around naked. Does anybody know? I imagine that it would be difficult, since we sometimes have a difficult time teaching that concept to some humans.
At the same time, we aren’t dressing them up for the sole purpose of instructing them of our ways. We do it to laugh at them. But is that only bad because they’re endangered? We dress up our cats and dogs all the time. Is that disrespectful to dogs and cats? It’s probably stupid, but disrespectful? I don’t think we are concerned about this particular issue with any other animal group outside of the apes. To an extent, maybe we really do feel that they are our stupid and immature and neglected cousins, and, although we don’t invite them to our social events, we feel bad if anybody mocks them. After all, they’re people, too.
We probably could be nicer to animals generally, and spare them the wiles of anthropomorphic advertisers. But our clash between our psychological relationship with apes and our environmental relationship with apes should be an ongoing and revealing discussion. Hopefully, we can come to terms with the demands of prudent environmentalism and conservationism so that we can finally get that monkey off of our backs.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/319/5869/1487
