'I just know that this crudely scrawled grafitti will be the key to converting the world to veganism' — Your Mommy Kills Animals questions the methods of animal rights activists

Your Mommy Kills Animals

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The push towards progressive editorializing in documentary filmmaking has, in recent years, resulted in increasingly slick, persuasive and highly profitable films. A craft perfected by Michael Moore, these entertaining, agenda-based pictures tackle divisive issues with so much aplomb, they inevitably spark controversy that, in turn, generates publicity. Far from its roots in fact-based sterility, this new wave of documentary filmmaking has succeeded in resurrecting a genre previously relegated to classrooms and nature channels. Their popularity has grown so much, that even relatively modestly budgeted documentaries like Curt Johnson’s Your Mommy Kills Animals are now reaping the attention that would not otherwise have existed.
    Sardonically named after a graphic PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) comic of the same name, Johnson’s film fearlessly explores the volatile world of animal rights activism with a degree of objectivity that is surprisingly refreshing, though it comes at the cost of being able to fully engage its audience.
    Rather then focus directly on the issue of animal rights and the atrocities inflicted upon our furry friends, Johnson sets his sights on the numerous and often conflicting organizations “dedicated” to defending them. From the suspiciously celebrity-oriented PETA and the corporately entrenched Animal Humane Society, to more subversive groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF — labelled as one of America’s most threatening domestic terrorist organizations), Animals benignly highlights the great divide separating those fighting for the same cause and questions which groups, if any, have the balanced approach.
    Audiences accustomed to the gleam of Moore’s over-produced fair may have difficulty aligning themselves to the impartial gaze of Johnson’s more traditionally structured piece. The noticeable absence of voice-over narration has the film relying entirely on the “talking head” format. Consequently, Animals doesn’t beat you over the head with its opinions and, in fact, has little or no voice at all. Instead, it is built upon a half-dozen or so interviews with experts and activists, representing a full range of opinions, from a “pro-testing” consumer rights lawyer to radicals preaching bombing and murder as viable options, all pieced together and inter-cut with the obligatory footage of protests, fire-bombs and a restrained degree of graphic animal images.
    An ineffective plotline involving a group of ALF members labelled “terrorists” by the FBI and prosecuted by the federal government is haphazardly developed to form the pic’s backbone. Belatedly introduced in the second reel and periodically abandoned throughout, it leaves the film with a meandering narrative and one that may try the patience of some. Despite this flaw, Animals provides a refreshing change from its documentary contemporaries, and succeeds in its efforts to inform and provoke.