Animal Rights on Satellite TV

Satellite TV is there to entertain. It is also there to show us some of the less appealing things in life-to keep us informed and conscience of certain subjects and themes. The new HBO documentary, Death on A Farm, goes to lengths to expose the underbelly of the hog industry. At times things aren't pretty. In fact it is often hard to look at the crystal clear, high definition details of this documentary, as pig farming can get nasty. But then again, that's partly the point. satellite tv is a film about animal rights and animal cruelty; it doesn't waver in showing you the facts. And the facts are grim. Each year, we learn, ten billion animals are raised in the US alone satellite tv consumption. Most of these animals aren't raised on sprawling open air farms that you're so use to seeing on satellite TV movies and shows like Green Acres or Charlotte's Web. No, these animals are raised on industrialized farm complexes where, there really is no law to mandate how these animals are treated. Even the laws that do exist tend to be ineffective.

The result is that many of these animals are treated poorly and even cruelly. Death on a Farm Factory was produced by Tom Simon, himself a distinguished film making, holding not one, but seven Emmy awards and Sarah Teale, who won two Emmy awards for her documentary Dealing Dogs, which you can also catch on HBO via satellite TV.

In the documentary, which actually took three years to make, the filmmakers follows an undercover investigator who goes by the name Pete as he investigates claims that hogs on the Wiles Hog Farm were being mistreated and abused. Claims alleged that the hog handlers frequently chained the animals and strangled them to death as a form of euthanasia.

The film covers six weeks and the hidden camera footage does get increasingly disturbing. Baby pigs are smashed into the wall and sows are left to die in rotting pens. One sow is hung by a chain from a forklift until it dies, choked to death. All of this evidence is brought to the Wayne County Sheriff Department. The farm is then raided and prosecutors file ten criminal charges of animal cruelty against the farm's owner.

The trial that ensued enraged people on both sides. The hog farmers don't want some liberal filmmakers dictating how they should run their farm, while animal rights activists are simply shocked at how this could happen. For the pig farmers, the practices they engage in seem to be mere sports, games to pass the time. This is a difficult movie to watch, and it actually touches on a very real cultural divide within America.

Animal cruelty is an incredibly pressing matter, but in close knit farm communities where raising and killing animals is a way of life, it's hard to judge one another. After all, as one farmer in the documentary notes, 'we can't all eat lettuce'.
Catch this eye opening documentary on HBO-check your satellite TV guide for show times.

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