Protest Evaluation: If Only You Could Hear Them

I researched into the companies that used animal testing for their cosmetics, food and medicinal products. I found that P&G are a huge user of animal testing for multiple companies that endorse and apply the use of animals to test their products, damaging creatures and fatally injuring a huge fraction of the 100 million animals that are killed each year, due to animal testing.

" "Procter & Gamble" also known as P&G, is an American multinational consumer goods company headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, founded by William Procter and James Gamble, both from the United Kingdom. "

We researched the brands that are directly associated with P&J and used them in our protest in order to educate our audience on the products that use animal testing in the hope to raise awareness and thusly encourage them to boycott the products.

Some of these products and brands include:

Max Factor
Aussie
Clairol
Olay
Pantene
Herbal Essences

and many more.

The harsh realities of the sufferings that animals must go through really ran through our protest as I used elements of what we had found throughout. For example, I looked up the affects that animal testing has on the animals themselves, as "71 per cent of all experiments were carried out without anesthetic". I wanted to really highlight how painful it must be and that the truth of animal testing isn't that it is all easy, kind and delicate but rather torturous and painful, going against the natural instincts of the animal and so forcing them to permit experiments that they don't want to have or may even be life threatening, I really displayed my resentment and distaste towards Billy and |Felix, I constantly looked for a way out and tried to escape their clutches, naturally I didn't want to allow them to force feed me pills or spray on my face wanting to move and avoiding their glares was highlighted to expose the miscarriage of justice and their going against my will as a human and as the animal I was portraying. The fact that "chemicals are rubbed into their skin or dripped into their eyes" we used multiple cosmetics that allowed us to do this and exposed lots of skin in order to allow them to test as much cosmetic products on the largest amount of surface area. "Until they are killed at the end of the experiment – which could last days, weeks, months or even years – their lives are marked by pain and fear." The use of sellotape as my costume displayed the use of animals over extremely expansive periods of time and so the fact that they use these deformed and worn out creatures for way past their physical ability and mental capabilities.

My role in the performance protest was performing as the animal that had to suffer the common abuse that several animals face every day. As a human I feel that the performance became even more distressing for the audience, as evidence of animal cruelty isn’t advertised and we wouldn’t of been able to perform this to an audience using an animal due to the fact that it would’ve gone against the aim of the protest humanising it helped the audience to relate and see the harsh realities of this form of cruelty, in a way that was kind and as I was able to display my willingness to take part in this sort of immersive protest.  They used multiple cosmetics and medicines on me as well as food, informing that not only the cosmetic industry uses animals to test the products; they applied it to me and also lead me around with a leash attached to my neck. My role was to fight and use animal instinct that developed across the length of the performance and resist as an animal would to the treatment. On researching animal behaviour I found that they displayed erratic behaviours and found that after numerous animal testing experiences they bit and ran in circles. I re-enacted this in my protest and helped explore real accounts that occur due to this abusive treatment.

I think that our performance was developed properly and I believe we really knew thoroughly our subject and what we were aiming to fight for, as a group we wanted to raise animal testing awareness concerning the treatment and methods they go through to utilize innocent creatures, we aimed to instil a mild level of guilt in order to encourage them to not use brands that endorse that treatment, we did this through allowing the audience to test on me which I believe displayed the direct effect of using products and brought animal testing to a personal level and experience . We also helped the audience do something about this as we displayed products that used animal testing to develop them, leading them on to be able to boycott such products. We remained in character for the entire 30 minutes which I believe made this performance extremely well executed and enabled any viewer to see the torturous experience of the animal.

The practise and thought that we went through enabled it to be extremely effective and thought-provoking as the audience visibly and verbally displayed their distress, proving the honest and obvious discomfort that the piece gave, making it incredibly effective. The audience spoke to the doctors and displayed their disgust through shouting and image taking of the horrendous conditions that some animals suffer.

I believe that the weakness of this performance was mainly the placement and the surrounding sounds of the other performances and the fact that the silence of the piece wasn’t considered because people struggled to hear anything anyway and so the silence wasn’t as noticeable. It may have worked better in a quieter place, perhaps the canteen or library as the sound of other performances drowned out the silence. However the other performances around really allowed us a constant flow of people to disperse and view our performance. I believe that the concept was strong as the “If only you could hear them” really hit home and displayed the fact that if this happened to humans here in the UK it would have heightened media attention and awareness.

The fact that the protest was performance based made the protest much more interesting and multi-dimensional as it became passionate and allowed us to show a literal display of animal testing abuse, rather than shouting and the use of placards and banners that although are effective, are a much more common use of protest and it allowed the audience to increasingly relate and a much easier level, persuading them with quiet personal experiences, rather than shouting your argument in their face, which I believe isn’t as persuasive.