Powder, Hunting, and Turning Points

Published November 09, 2008 @ 11:08AM PT

There's been much conversation on yesterday's post, in which I briefly vented about the existence of a gallery of hunting photos on a newspaper's Web site, showing smiling, self-congratulatory hunters posing with their victims. You can expect more in-depth discussions on hunting in the future, but for now, indulge me while I share with you one of my turning points.

Several years before I stopped eating animals altogether, I stopped eating the deer meat that sat upon my grandfather's table during and following every hunting season. He and others gave me a hard time about my refusal. My grandpa, my uncle, and my cousins--and indeed, a good number of the men, as well as a segment of the women, in my area--just about lived for hunting season; high school students were even allowed to miss school so that they could head out into the woods with guns. But a movie I'd just seen had completely changed my perspective on hunting--that is to say that it had given me a perspective whereas before I'd just never given the practice much thought. I've no doubt that some will find something to mock in this clip from the 1995 movie Powder, but I sobbed in the theater as I watched it that night 13 years ago, as it occurred to me, for what, incredibly, was perhaps the first time, how much unnecessary pain and suffering resulted from my community members' "fun." Never again could I see or smell the flesh of deer without imagining the pain and fear of those final moments. (Clip after the jump.)

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Comments (1)

What a powerful scene: the hunters' casual attitude toward killing is suddenly challenged when he experiences the pain the animal is going through. It's not just a body dying... it's a being who is terrified. I know that it was just a fake deer used for this scene & the actor/hunter just acting, but the stark contrast between the deer languishing in silence while the man screamed at the shared pain, it's just brilliant.

I just hope that the right people get the message.

Posted by Lisa Smolen on 11/09/2008 @ 09:01PM PT
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Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.