Although Babe was released a quarter-century ago, its critique of animal agriculture remains timely. Babe celebrates the “unprejudiced heart” of its eponymous piggy hero, who narrowly escapes becoming Christmas dinner to triumph as a sheepdog (sheep-pig) instead. The movie reveals that Hogget Farm’s orthodoxies are unjust: dogs are not inherently better than the sheep they herd, pigs don’t deserve death more than anyone else, and domination produces worse outcomes than egalitarianism. This seemingly innocuous tale of a brave creature’s fight against stereotypes challenges society’s common rationales for the continued use of farmed animals – and so does a growing body of research.
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Trees shiver with naked boughs, squirrels slumber on hoards of burnished nuts, and many people may be feeling the festive spirit stirring in their marrow. Yet Christmas means work in the pig industry, where a huge backlog of animals await slaughter in preparation for seasonal banquets. As fans of the beloved children’s film Babe may recall, jingle bells sound like dinner bells to animals who are fated to become the main course – and find out first-hand that “Christmas means carnage.”
Although Babe was released a quarter-century ago, its critique of animal agriculture remains timely. Babe celebrates the “unprejudiced heart” of its eponymous piggy hero, who narrowly escapes becoming Christmas dinner to triumph as a sheepdog (sheep-pig) instead. The movie reveals that Hogget Farm’s orthodoxies are unjust: dogs are not inherently better than the sheep they herd, pigs don’t deserve death more than anyone else, and domination produces worse outcomes than egalitarianism. This seemingly innocuous tale of a brave creature’s fight against stereotypes challenges society’s common rationales for the continued use of farmed animals – and so does a growing body of research.
“PIGS ARE DEFINITELY STUPID”
While Babe proves pigs’ high intelligence to the dogs of Hoggett Farm, their presumption that humans “only eat stupid animals” persists in current society. Research suggests that pigs have comparable intelligence to both dogs and chimpanzees and possess a sophisticated emotional range. Porcine intellect manifests in remarkable ways – even, as Dutch researchers discovered, in the playing of video games with humans. Although Babe’s kindness and smarts save him in the movie, real humans who appreciate pigs’ advanced intelligence may remain unmoved by their plight. One Forbes writer, after referencing the literature on pig intelligence, reminds readers who still prefer to consume hog flesh to simply “remember the cranberry sauce.” Along with intellect, pigs possess the ability to suffer physical and psychological pain – which pig farmers readily admit. Given their proven brainpower and sensitivity, it remains unclear what quality pigs must demonstrate to escape being farmed and eaten.
Pigs are no less personable than dogs and can perform similar tricks, regardless of their starkly contrasting treatment. They can also be socialised to adopt the behaviour of their group; just as Babe acts like a dog, a real pig named Dragonlord was raised by felines and therefore acts like a cat. “Man’s best friend” may be famously loyal, but dogs cannot monopolise this trait given the existence of pigs like Lucky, who heroically saved his family from a house fire. Such porcine gallantry irresistibly recalls the scene in which Babe wins the sheepdog contest, prompting Farmer Hogget’s stoic praise: “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” Since pigs can be similarly valuable companions, denying them the protections granted to dogs and cats reflects a dissonant state of affairs.
“THE WAY THINGS ARE”
Although the movie challenges Hoggett Farm’s regimen of violence, the modern meat industry is far more inhumane. The small-scale family agriculture mode that the film depicts is fast dying out, outcompeted by factory farming. Annually, 10 million pigs in the UK and 1.5 billion globally are sent to slaughterhouses – those places that the movie sardonically describes as “so wonderful that no pig had ever thought to come back.” According to animal rights charity Viva!, approximately 36 percent of UK pig electrocutions are carried out sloppily and unlawfully. Workers hastily administer as many as 13.3 percent of such electrocutions with tongs on snout, which does not render a pig unconscious; around 125,000 British pigs per annum are therefore lucid when their throats are cut. Babe viewers are merely shown the arbitrary unjustness of a system whereby the dogs brutalise the sheep, the humans eat the pigs and chickens, and only cats and canines receive a coveted place by the fire. Hogget Farm’s violence, however disturbing, pales next to today’s predominantly industrial facilities.
Pigs suffer slaughterhouses for the singular reason that, as the movie puts it, “pork is a nice sweet meat.” The movie suggests that the taste of Babe’s flesh would be a poor reason to kill such a good-willed animal, and Westerners undoubtedly apply similar logic when they hear of dog carcasses in certain Vietnamese delicatessens. Pork may be sweet, but its procurement is unsanitary; slurry pollution caused outbreaks of pfiesteria in the 1990s and continues to pose various health hazards to communities situated near giant pig farms. Pig farming produced the swine flu pandemic and threatens to cause more outbreaks in the future and even unleash novel coronaviruses. Humans’ flavour preferences are largely socially determined, besides a built-in proclivity for fatty and sugary foods. Those who avoid pork, like Muslims and vegans, can be highly sensitive to or even disgusted by its scent. Pig meat is an acquired taste, and while human taste preferences are replaceable, the life of a pig is not.
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“PIG OF DESTINY”
Babe is one of many cultural moments that reframe pigs as more than simply unprepared pork. The Gauls of the first century BCE revered pigs and worshipped boar gods like Moccus. Battle-pigs were reportedly used in warfare by ancient armies, and, although horribly killed – smeared with pitch and set alight, their squealing reportedly scaring the enemy’s elephants – at least their involuntary service was duly commemorated on Roman currency. The learned pigs were wonders of 18th- and 19-century Britain and America that performed tricks for the paying public in areas as diverse as mathematics and mind reading. These scholarly swine impressed Dr. Samuel Johnson, revered lexicographer and man of letters, who opined that pigs are “a race unjustly calumniated.” Demonstrating the persistence of their undeserved lowly status, however, Johnson’s defence of pigs was crudely turned on him postmortem when an anonymous poem compared him to a learned pig, newly arrived in London:
Though Johnson, learned Bear, is gone,
Let us no longer mourn our loss,
For lo, a learned Hog is come,
And wisdom grunts at Charing Cross.
Even today, pigs can ooze charisma, as Esther the Wonder Pig demonstrates with her 600,000 Instagram followers, who delight in her blissful enjoyment of food, sleep, and affection. Pigs have been, and can be, elevated beyond the dinner plate into subjects of fascination and respect.
James Cromwell and Babe. Universal Home Entertainment.
“THE UNPREJUDICED HEART”
A quarter-century ago, Babe portrayed the humble pig with sympathy, and the public responded with enthusiasm. Now, in the company of a bloated animal industry and a culture that arbitrarily designates which animals to cosset and which to slaughter, championing Babe’s “unprejudiced heart” remains pertinent. Yet regarding the movie as simply an endearing parable is insufficient to reform how humans treat billions of suffering beings, each one just as worthy as Babe. Portraying the sympathetic Farmer Hoggett inspired actor James Cromwell to reject the maxim “Christmas means carnage” by hosting a meatless “Compassionate Christmas” meal for those in need; today, he is a prolific animal advocate. Those rewatching Babe this winter might do so with an open heart and a self-critical mind. Only by mirroring the transformation of Cromwell and Hoggett alike can viewers help make the days “when pigs were afforded no respect, except by other pigs” a relic of the past, and enshrine the status of all pigs as Babes instead of bacon.
