A Cow at My Table

«Billed as ‘a documentary about culture, meat and animals’, A Cow at my Table, is an extravagant and often delightfully unpredictable mix of interviews, clips from educational films about the agricultural industry, silent comedies from the early 1900s and videos made in secret. Jennifer Abbott was arrested and briefly locked up in Saskatoon prisons for trespassing on Intercontinental Packers Inc. property to document the death of a cow, although all charges against her were later dropped. ‘Her adventure in Saskatoon’ is a perfect example of her thesis on the social forces that conceal, distort and legitimise factory farming with dangerous consequences for animals, humans and the environment… Our acceptance of this situation represents what Vandana Shiva calls ‘the ethics of anaesthesia’.

The vegetarian activist Shiva is just one of many interviewees that viewers probably do not know. There are also many people from the lecture circuit. Each one makes a case, in particular Jim Mason, who directed his activism against factory farming long before this became a general commitment of the animal rights movement. However, the real ‘divas’ of A Cow at my Table are the little-known agricultural industry spokeswoman Susan Kitchen and moderate animal welfare activist lan Duncan. Visibly uncomfortable, Susan Kitchen spouts platitudes upon platitudes that Duncan dismantles one by one. Since he is not a prominent activist, his testimony will probably carry more weight with viewers who are still unconvinced».

(from Animal People. January/February 1999)