The Meatrix

If you’re going to learn a little something about factory farming, you might as well do it with a bit of entertainment thrown in.

Check out The Meatrix. A fantastic animated mock-up of The Matrix that, in just over three minutes, covers the basic issues surrounding industrial farming--animal cruelty, antibiotic resistance, massive pollution, and destroyed communities.

Think Chicken Run. Think Silent Spring. Think of a bovine Laurence Fishburne and a porcine… well… don’t think that much…

If you’re going to learn a little something about factory farming, you might as well do it with a bit of entertainment thrown in.

Think Chicken Run. Think Silent Spring. Think of a bovine Laurence Fishburne and a porcine… well… don’t think that much…

The story goes like this: Leo, the pig, happy in his lovely little family farm pen, is greeted by Moophius, a deep-voiced bull, clad in dark glasses and a black trench. “Have you heard about the Meatrix?,” he asks “Do you want to know what it is?”

“The Meatrix,” he explains, “ is the lie we tell ourselves about where our meat and animal products come from.”

The Meatrix was conceived and created by Free Range Graphics, a design firm for progressive political and non-profit organizations. In 2003, Free Range invited hundreds of non-profit organizations to apply for their first Flash Activism Grant that entitled the winner to free production of a Flash movie. GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Enviornment) was chosen.

Factory farming is hard to stomach on film. This little bit of flash animation makes it go down a whole lot easier. A fine Moo-vie.

[by Tamara Holt]