Exaggerations
Innocent Essay on Vegan Ideals Somehow Makes Natalie Portman a Rape Apologist
Classy, Attack of the Clones-surviving ingenue Natalie Portman is everyone’s unimpeachable dream girl, but apparently the actress has an inner vegan activist waiting to get out (I blame you for this, Devendra Banhart). In a HuffPo editorial, Portman wrote today about how a read of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals turned her from a timid vegetarian to an ardent vegan who’s not afraid to confront her meat-eating friends. Though such a sentiment might be a little insufferable in a “Williamsburg sliding scale” kind of way, somehow, online pundits have divined from this fairly unremarkable argument that Portman loves rape, or something.
Here’s the key passage:
I say that Foer’s ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just “This is tasty, and that’s why I do it.” He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).
So, despite the fact that Natalie Portman is clearly quoting a Jonathan Safran Foer quote of a Michael Pollan analogy, the following game of blog telephone occurred.
First, Portman’s original HuffPo headline:
Then, Jezebel came up with a take:
E! took it from there:
And Oh No They Didn’t brought it home:
In conclusion, because Portman is a vegan who’s quoting someone else thirdhand, she clearly loves rape, hopes that meat eaters always get raped, and fought hard for the inclusion of a rape subplot in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Got it. Nobody tell these people that she signed the Team Polanski letter, OK?
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals Turned Me Vegan [HuffPo]
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Posted 27 Oct 2009, 5:02 PM
Anyone who has eaten Kogi truck spicy pork tacos clearly knows what it's like to have been raped.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 6:20 PM
I second that emotion.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 5:38 PM
The way I read that paragraph, she's the one making the equation.
Michael Pollan promoted polite consideration of one's tablemates over one's ideals when it comes to meat eating. Jonathan Safran Foer posits that this is wrong and that this politeness would be absurd if it where applied to any other situation. It is Portman who then makes the comparison to tolerating rape for the sake of politeness.
She may be quoting something Foer wrote in his book, but it certainly isn't in his NY Times essay.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 5:42 PM
this has to be the best comment in the history of comments
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 5:52 PM
Ummm no. You are completely missing the point here. Nobody said Ms. Portman loves rape (although she seems support rapists who can help her career out), people are upset because she compared eating meat to supporting rape. It is completely offensive not only to those who do eat meat but to rape survivors.
Did you completely miss this sentence. These are Portman's own words.
e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it.
She was trying to come up with an edgy comparison and while she may not have wanted to offend anyone she did. So no one needs to lighten up. Ms Portman needs to gain some more knowledge on the crime of rape because it is in no way comparable to the eating of animals, and the simple fact Ms. Portman does view it as such shows alot about her views on the crime.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 8:31 PM
No, maybe you need to know more about eating meat. You may need to see this from the perspective of a vegan who acknowledges animals' equal right to dignity.
Try to weigh the trauma of being locked up your entire life under inhumane conditions before being slaughtered against the trauma of rape.
People offended by Portman's comment could be seen as on par with a white man getting offended by the suggestion that a Cambodian child losing a leg in war is on par with a white child breaking their leg on dangerous play equipment.
Seriously though, I think we should engage in Portman's article as it was meant to be engaged: a suggestion that we take seriously the ethics of what we eat. Turning this into a game of ranking various traumas is reactionary nonsense.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 9:21 PM
We understand your position and we reject it wholeheartedly. No amount of wanky comparisons are going to change anyone's mind.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 12:24 AM
Who is this "we" you refer to? The Borg collective?
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 1:39 AM
Non-vegans, dummy. Now get in my stewpot.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 9:46 PM
No, people who are offended by her comment should be seen as rational, logical people who see a disconnect between her saying that you wouldn't condone rape just to be polite when she signed a petition for keeping a child rapist free just because he's a director. She has no business talking about how immoral rape is at all. It doesn't matter that she wasn't actually making a comparison between eating meat and rape; her statement was still idiotic in light of her recent actions.
Posted 02 Nov 2009, 10:06 AM
As a vegan...I agree that it was a really poor choice of words and poor choice of analogy. However, speaking of disconnect...what about the disconnect going on with what you put on your plate? Factory farming is the worst in animal cruelty, make the connection between causing unbelievable suffering for your own enjoyment.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 6:57 AM
I could not agree more, Brad. Brilliantly put. Be prepared to get hammered on by those who don't have the courage to look closely at their own behavior. Yet. :)
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 6:36 PM
Absolutely amazing to see that twisted like that, and a perfect example of one thing massively wrong with our world. Of course, the same practice is exactly what Fox "News" does with every "news report" they cover, only they do all the twisting themselves.
Portman is about a thousand times more intelligent than most people- of course, in our current society that's not saying much.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 7:27 PM
"Portman is about a thousand times more intelligent than most people- of course, in our current society that's not saying much."
And where is your proof of this? No one may have told you this but your opinions don't count as fact. And before you jump on the "she went to an Ivy league college" train just remember G.W. Bush also went to an Ivy league college.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 12:47 AM
You want proof? American Idol is going on its ninth season. Mmmkay?
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 7:12 PM
have you read the comments at ONTD? they know she's a polanski supporter.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 7:20 PM
"I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it"
No matter whose quote it is, if you swap "dinner hosts" for "academy members", this could explain her signing that Free Polanski petition.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 7:37 PM
I don't believe in being vegan, but if that's what it takes to please my Natalie Portman, then so be it.
...I'm sorry, where am I?
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 10:00 PM
Confused. None of those articles seems to remotely imply that Portman approves of rape.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 11:00 PM
I don't give a meat-eating shit about what Natalie Portman thinks of my position on the food chain.
Posted 26 Nov 2009, 4:03 PM
Clearly you don't care that you give the impression that you were raised in a gutter.
Posted 27 Oct 2009, 11:46 PM
When she was in Harvard she smoked weed everyday.
She cheated every test and snorted all the yay.
She's got a def posse, you've got a bunch of dudes.
She'll sit right down on your face, and take a shit.
In summation, she never said she was a role model.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 5:57 AM
portman should tell the 15 year old girl in SFO who was gang raped for 2 1/2 hours outside a school dance, because nobody reported it until another woman called the cops - who arrived to find the rape still in progress, that she knows exactly how she feels every time i eat a ham sandwich.
that would go over really well i think.
equating the moral dilemma of vegetarian/vegan-ism with forcible sodomy is such a brave stance. kudos to you nat!
/end sarcasm
Posted 26 Nov 2009, 4:09 PM
There is a word for attributing the ability to suffer and feel pain as greater in humans than other mammmals. It's called speciesism. From Merriam Webster:
Pronunciation: \ˈspē-shēz-ˌi-zəm, sēz\
Function: noun
Date: 1973
1 : prejudice or discrimination based on species; especially : discrimination against animals
2 : the assumption of human superiority on which speciesism is based
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 6:54 AM
Eh. I just generally don't think she's as smart or as right as she thinks she is...
But, hey, neither am I. So, we're cool.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 7:29 AM
Eating meat is socially acceptable in our society as a whole.
Rape is not.
If that changes, and eating meat becomes punishable by law, then I could see using the analogy.
Otherwise there is no correlation whatsoever.
Find another analogy.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 7:39 AM
As I consider eating meat AND rape completely offensive, I know exactly what she means, i.e., that it's somehow expected of courteous vegans (who, tragically, are still considered laughable in many circles, even by the author of this article) that we serve meat and other animal fare to our flesh-addicted dinner guests and not "offend" them by forcing vegan entrees; which is philosophically akin to inviting rapists to the dinner table even if you're ethically against rape (and who isn't, except the rapist himself)?
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 10:56 AM
Serving meat to friends is as offensive as serving any food to rapists would be. It's quite possible she's done both, and knows what she's talking about. It's about suppressing strong ethical objections to someone's behavior for the sake of civility.
Even if I disagree, I fail to see how she's condoning rape. Analogies don't work that way, and I'd think journalists have a better command of grammar.
Seriously, get a clue. She's a vegan. If you're going to stereotype, at least use the right bag of stereotypes.
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 12:27 PM
I agree with Brad,
and secondly, to all of you who think she's comparing rape with eating meat.. to a certain extent, you might read it like that. What Nathalie Portman is actually doing though, can be compared to a socalled "Reductio ad absurdum." She's merely pointing out peoples often inconsistent behaviour:
Starting from the implied preposition: "it is alright to do something unethical that's unethical for me if it pleases my tablemate", we can derive the statement "[it is alright if I eat meat even though I find it unethical], if and only if it pleases my tablemate"
Now, we can also say instead of [eating meat], [killing], [rape] etc. etc, just anything that's UNethical
"[it is alright to rape even though it's unethical for me], if it pleases my tablemate"
But that statement would be ABSURD to accept, just like Nathalie Portman points out! It would be ABSURD and WRONG to accept rape.
Meaning that that implied preposition: "it is alright to do something unethical if it plealses my tablemate" is wrong because it leads to absurd conclusions if it were true.
If anything, Nathalie Portman is very against rape in her article!
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 12:35 PM
At the very least animals raised for man's enjoyment are "slaves". They are confined against their will. Add in that most are artificially inseminated - Bingo!... you have "rape". Their lives are also forcefully stolen from them... Some even call this "murder". The analogies aren't that far of a stretch, if you consider that nonhumans have the same desires for freedom from pain and life as we humans do.
It's just a matter of seeing things objectively. And not shrouded in the emotions of what we were indoctrinated to believe about "farm" animals since birth. Maybe it's time to go beyond what we were taught to think about some animals... cows, pigs and chickens. Anyone who has a dog, cat, bird or hamster knows they enjoy their lives and don't wish to be killed. What makes "food" animals so different - aside from what culture has made us accept?
It's easier than ever to go vegan - Maybe the right time is now?
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 3:56 PM
The holocaust was far worse than any rape, and Isaac Bashevitz Singer (himself a survivor) compared the holocaust to meat eating.
"when it comes to animals, every man is a Nazi." - Isaac Bashevitz Singer
Posted 28 Oct 2009, 5:54 PM
Based on the fact that she signed that Polanski petition, I'm forced to conclude from her Huffpo pro-vegan piece that she's definitely down with veal.
Posted 05 Nov 2009, 9:59 PM
Um. Natalie actually is a rape apologist. She is one of the many idiot celebrities who signed the petition supporting child rapist Roman Polanski. Her analogy is therefore hypocritical as well as completely stupid and offensive!
Posted 26 Nov 2009, 4:16 PM
Speciesism: Pronunciation: \ˈspē-shēz-ˌi-zəm, sēz\
Function: noun
Date: 1973
1 : prejudice or discrimination based on species; especially: discrimination against animals
2 : the assumption of human superiority on which speciesism is based
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." — Mahatma Gandhi