Animal Rights group calls for a boycott of Love/Hate

Foxhound38

According to BreakingNews.ie the Animal Rights Action Network has their knickers in a right aul twist over the opening scene of the new series of Love/Hate, in which a cat has a bad day with a young skanger and a machine gun. They're calling for people to boycott the rest of the series.

What do ye think? Was the scene gratuitious or should the group realize it's drama, no animal was injured and cop on to themselves?

I'd be of the latter opinion myself - I absolutely abhore animal cruelty and the scene did give me a shock alright, but that's what it set out to do. It's the same crap that goes on every time a new series of the show comes out - same Joe Duffy style moaning about it glorifying gangland shenanigans etc. It doesn't, none of the characters in the show with the possible exception of Frano look like they are having a particularly good time doing what they do for a living - they're tragic figures.

The show is a cultural context, it's painting a dramatized picture of what goes on in a certain world - if the writers were to listen to every do-gooder civil society group whinging every time a gun came out we'd end up with Fair City 2.

chopper6

I tried to watch it the other night...God it was dire.

Nodin

...hard to know what their malfunction is there, tbh. Its not like it was on "Countrywide" as a new sport for the young people....

WIZE

Eh the cat is an actor. Hello!!

In this Irish exclusive, The Potato got to chat with the one of the breakout stars of the first episode of the new Love/Hate season, the dead cat.

The dead cat (Who’s thankfully alive and well!) is played by 4 year old Mr Snuffles, a British Shorthair breed, currently residing in North County Dublin. Although only featured in the first episode for a brief moment, the cat has taken Irish viewers by storm and is already proving to be one of the most loved characters of the new season.

Speaking to The Potato about how the role came about, Mr Snuffles said;

I’ve been into acting and performance since I was a very young kitten. I started out as a Billy Barry cat and even got a quick performance on the Late Late Toy Show once. Since then I’d be doing some adverts for cat food, been an extra a couple of times on Fair City and working on my own Funny Cat Video Compilation 2013 for YouTube, which I hope to release in a couple of weeks. It’s just a complication of me running into walls, failing into the toilet and badly mistiming jumps from one thing to another.

Mr Snuffles went on to comment about the industry for cats and saying that although cats do make up a large part of the Internet as a whole, says that competition can be tough;

Yea, it is great that cats are in such high demand for Internet work these days. I mean, there’s ton of work for Memes and videos, but that increased demand has also meant huge competition. Since the recession, loads more cats are flooding the industry, so it can be hard to get noticed and stand out. A few years ago, it was a lot easier, you know, to earn a living as an Internet cat, but now, so many cats are seeing the opportunity to be had and it’s diluting the work for everyone really. I suppose it’s good for the industry, but it makes it a hell of a lot tougher.

Mr Snuffles also said working with the cast of Love/Hate has been the highlight of his career so far:

It has been an absolute honour to work on Love/Hate, even though it was just for a short period. Everyone was so welcoming, open and friendly. When I first got the call to audition, I really didn’t think I’d make it, there were so many other cats with years more TV experience than me going for the part. I was so nervous, the audition involved running really fast and then playing dead. I thought I messed it up, but got a call back and then was offered the part. I was really overwhelmed, but it was a fantastic opportunity for me, something I’ll cherish for the rest of my lives.

Mr Snuffles won’t be appearing in any more epsiodes – even though rumours online are suggesting he’s not in fact dead – but has secured himself a role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats, which will run in the Gaiety this Decemeber.

WindSock

Right. But they don't give a toss when the murder / torture of humans are depicted in the show?

Love2love

Don't watch it but my god, this is ridiculous.

darkpagandeath

rabble rabble something fictional happened in a fictional TV show. Do these people think it's a filmed live documentary ?

Anyone

If you boycott the show Nidge will tax ya!

Baybay

Irrelevant to the plot, in my opinion.

Mark Twain

The Animal Rights Action Network probably consists of some smelly crustbag living in a cold water bedsit in Rathmines.

krudler

Sigh, because nobody ever hurt animals before now, and calling for boycotting something never just gives it free publicity.

Foxhound38

As a commenter on the article said:

Listen lads, don't worry about it. I'll just tell my kids not to be playing around with their sub-machine guns on the streets in case any cats get hurt. Problem Solved!

Seems like a fair compromise to me

lahalane

Lots of cats are going to be in danger come Halloween. Maybe they should concentrate on saving them instead.

The One Who Knocks

Instead of whinging over this, why don't they focus their efforts on finding those 3 asian girls who tortured a puppy and put it up on facebook?.. It was an absolutely disgusting video, they kept kicking and stepping on the poor thing, eventually killing him.

ScumLord

Headline should be, Animal rights activists try to latch onto successful show with idiotic complaints. Irish media oblige.

My name is URL

Looking at their site, they seem more interested in 'media exposure' and free ad campaigns than actually doing anything proactive to protect animals =/

http://www.aran.ie/

Procasinator

*Sigh*. They should be careful calling for stupid boycotts, it does harm to the main aim in raising awareness. They end up looking like crack-pots, and it tarnishes the name of the organisation.

Sleepy

Hang on just a minute... are you trying to tell me you expect measured, sane reactions from animal rights activists?!

Gee Bag

I'd be in favour of machine gunning the entire cast of Cats the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

I hate musicals!

statesaver

Jamez735 wrote: »

Instead of whinging over this, why don't they focus their efforts on finding those 3 asian girls who tortured a puppy and put it up on facebook?.. It was an absolutely disgusting video, they kept kicking and stepping on the poor thing, eventually killing him.

Don't do facebook so have no idea what your on about but have to ask, did this happen in Ireland ?

My name is URL

statesaver wrote: »

Don't do facebook so have no idea what your on about but have to ask, did this happen in Ireland ?

Nope.. it happened in the Phillipines, and it's very common too. There's actually a market for that stuff. They're called 'crush videos'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_film

Lot of sick fcuks out there!

The Animal rights group with get their knickers in a twist if you fart beside a dog. They look for any excuse to complain.

eisenberg1

Gee Bag wrote: »

I'd be in favour of machine gunning the entire cast of Cats the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

I hate musicals!

Yeah, but at least the sun will come out tommorah, tomorrah:)

folan

its a well known fact that animals are more important than people.

Shenshen

Monkey see, monkey do.
It's common knowledge that there are sheloads of people out there whose IQ should disqualify them from ever watching telly at all, but that doesn't mean we should ban telly.

Can't say I'm in any way interested in that program, and the article certianly did nothing to make it more appealing to me, but I'm sure it will give someone out there enjoyment.

The One Who Knocks

My name is URL wrote: »

Nope.. it happened in the Phillipines, and it's very common too. There's actually a market for that stuff. They're called 'crush videos'

Lot of sick fcuks out there!

What??? There's no way that happens all the time!

B*st*rds should be shot, it was just sick. :mad:

I didn't know what the video was at first, but they started kicking him around and the puppy kept running away from them,.. I was wondering if it was a fake video or some sort of prank or something but nope.. it just got worse, they started properly putting their weight on the puppy and knocking him down,.. I couldn't watch any more so skipped to the last minute to check if he was okay but one of the girls was standing on him at that point with her two feet, and it looked like he was dead. Absolutely disgusting.

I understand if they had to kill him for food or something, but they could have made it quick, instead of torturing him, ..they deserve to be flattened by a car or something, to see how they like it.

hfallada

I think its fu cking ridiculous that we live in a country that care more about animals than people. A lot of prisoners are kept in inhumane conditions, were every morning they have to empty their **** filled bucket. So their over crowded cell(that was built for 1 person, but has 3 in it) doesnt smell. Or they are staying in a prison full of drug users, but yet there is no detox units.I know some prisoners are "scumbags" but some are people who made the wrong decision and have to pay for their mistake in a modern day slum

But isnt dreadful in opening scene of a fiction tv show, that cat dies and there is up roar. We have some ****ed up priorities in this country.

Plazaman

And what about that poor prostitute that got puked on by that dirty dentist. Boycott Dentists, I say.

SimonQuinlank

People should boycott Love/Hate because it's shíte!

wexandproud

jebus , they have little to worry about. they must be seriously lacking something in their lives.

Conmaicne Mara

Silly attention whores.

My name is URL

Jamez735 wrote: »

I understand if they had to kill him for food or something, but they could have made it quick, instead of torturing him, ..they deserve to be flattened by a car or something, to see how they like it.

The whole point of those videos is to torture the animals. People get off on watching that stuff. Seriously.. laws have been passed in the US to limit the sale and supply of such material because it had become so popular =(

Tbh, I'd be more sickened by those watching the stuff than the girls in the video. They're most probably only doing it for the money rather than some twisted psycho desire to see animals suffer.

ScumLord

If anything these kind of things happening in TV or film highlight animal abuse rather than promote it. I'm sure the show wasn't showing the cat death in a humorous light (I haven't seen it).

It's like people want to stick their heads in the sand over these issue and pretend they don't exist. If the TV didn't highlight acts of cruelty, dumbass animal rights groups would probably never know they happen.

DwightSchrute1

Baybay wrote: »

Irrelevant to the plot, in my opinion.

I disagree, i think it was done to show us how much of a psycho the young lad was.

As for the animal rights group, i think the just using Love/Hate for some media exposure.

I actually thought it was another Love/Hate joke at first.
But, Id say it was a PR stunt really

BattleCorp

Jake1 wrote: »

I actually thought it was another Love/Hate joke at first.
But, Id say it was a PR stunt really

A PR stunt that made them look like a bunch of tossers ......... imho.

Conmaicne Mara

BattleCorp wrote: »

A PR stunt that made them look like a bunch of tossers ......... imho.

Walks like a duck......

Gatling

But when poor auld darren got whacked with 2 to the back of skull ,

Where was amnesty international ,or Vincent's de Paul

Poor's Darren's favourite hoody was ruined

wp_rathead

Deleted User wrote: »

The Animal rights group with get their knickers in a twist if you fart beside a dog. They look for any excuse to complain.

This made me laugh way more than it really shoudl have

Cd_doe

Something tells me they didn't watch the first 3 series...

A dog gets beat to death with an iron bar, a swam gets its neck broken and dano kills enough pigeons to fill 2 black bags..

It's nothing new. The will get over it

homerhop

if you looked into some of the characters involved in the animal rights groups here in Ireland they are as bad as the characters played in love hate

hatrickpatrick

In very much in favour of animal rights, but these people are ridiculous. The same types went berserk when Hangover 3 came out and featured a giraffe getting decapitated (obviously CGI). It makes no sense.

Objecting to fictional depictions where nothing is actually harmed is something I will absolutely never understand.

wazky

In fairness, shows what can happen when you fire off your sub-machine gun all willy nilly.

Good consumer advice in my opinion.

Cupcake_Crisis

No one gave a bright blue crap when your man punched a swan to death in the last season. I still hear the squawks in my nightmares

chuck_g

Could I get a fizzy orange please??

Foxhound38

WIZE wrote: »

Eh the cat is an actor. Hello!!

Mr Snuffles? That's a dog's naaaame :pac:

Baybay

DwightSchrute1 wrote: »

I disagree, i think it was done to show us how much of a psycho the young lad was.
.

I believe so too but there were many targets he could have chosen, any of which would have shown that.
For example, he could have sprayed bullets at the collection of lads in the preceding scene.
Or shot his friend while he was taking the picture before calmly picking up the phone & walking off looking at it.
Or if the two had given chase & hunted down the third lad before shooting his body to a bloody pulp.
Or maybe himself.

The point is, he had many options to show he was the hard man / psycho but chose the target that was least interested in him & was actually going in the opposite direction.
How much better might the scene have been if he had eye to eye, human contact with his prey before killing him?

I think it was written the way it was for the shock value of the blood spatter & because the killing of animals has become a part of what the audience seems to expect.
And yes, maybe we have become somewhat immune to humans being killed in the programmes we watch but maybe it's a good thing that we can empathise with something.

Howard Juneau

Surely that isn't the first time a pussy got fcked on Love Hate, why is everyone getting so worked up?!

Foxhound38

Baybay wrote: »

For example, he could have sprayed bullets at the collection of lads in the preceding scene.
Or shot his friend while he was taking the picture before calmly picking up the phone & walking off looking at it.
Or if the two had given chase & hunted down the third lad before shooting his body to a bloody pulp.
Or maybe himself.

How are any of these things more acceptable than shooting the cat?

I think it was written the way it was for the shock value

That's exactly why it was written that way, and it was effective in that, and it conveyed the message that the writers wanted to get through about the character in question (that he was a psychopath) without going over the top enough that the reasonable viewer wouldn't be complaining about the fact that the cops didn't decide to hunt him down over it (as they would have had he killed a person in the scene).

Baybay

Foxhound38 wrote: »

How are any of these things more acceptable than shooting the cat?
.

They are absolutely not any more acceptable.

They were alternatives to how otherwise the lad could have been presented as a psycho.

ColeTrain

Look lads, you just can't be shooting cats with a machine gun, you can't be doing it lads. It's not on at all. Can't be doing it.