My Dad Worked in a Slaughterhouse. I Made a Documentary About It.

I’m an EA who has been trying to find ways to make animal suffering more salient. I’ve been working on a feature-length documentary called ‘The Dying Trade’ for the last 5 years and I’ve just released it on YouTube. 

I’m sharing it here for two reasons: firstly, because I hope it can become a useful resource that advocates share with others as an introduction to animal ethics; and secondly, because strong engagement in the early days will help YouTube recommend the film to more people, increasing its impact.

Trailer: 

Full film: 

About the film

Jack is a vegan activist. His father is a slaughterhouse worker. After years of avoiding the subject, Jack sets out to confront the unspoken tension between them. This intimate and contemplative documentary follows a son’s attempt to understand his father - and the industry that stands between them.

I didn’t really want to make a documentary about my relationship with my father. At times, it was quite uncomfortable. 

For the last 8 years or so, I’ve been trying to increase the salience of animal suffering, primarily through producing videos on my YouTube channel: Humane Hancock. And one thing has always been clear: It’s hard to get people to pay attention to the suffering of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. 

In some sense, having a father who works in a slaughterhouse gave me a unique opportunity to approach the issue from a different angle - something that might seem more appealing to people than standard explorations into factory farming. 

My goal with this film has been to make something that promotes concern for animals in a way that is engaging / interesting while avoiding triggering defensiveness as much as possible - I think there were tradeoffs here and I’m sure others would have made different decisions at times. This is my first film, and when I began I had very little idea what I was doing - including whether my dad would ever agree to participate at all. 

Some thoughts on effectiveness

I think I’ve had a sense that documentaries have been influential in promoting concern for animals. Anecdotally, many advocates I’ve spoken to, both within and outside of EA, have described having their “journey” into the movement triggered by documentaries, and this has also been reflected in some surveys. Most of the documentaries people cite have had mainstream distribution, with Earthlings being a notable exception - which seemed to gain popularity by word of mouth.

Intuitively, films seem capable of creating a kind of emotional engagement that can make people more open to reflection and attitude change in ways that straightforward argument sometimes cannot.

At the same time, I think this kind of work is frustratingly difficult to evaluate rigorously. View counts and audience reactions are imperfect proxies for impact, but they may be the best available indicators for projects like this.

After spending so many years on this project, I might take a breather before committing to another large project. But I’m interested in communicating ideas around wild animal suffering to broader audiences, and I’d be very interested to speak with others interested in that space.

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