PETA Pulls “Lose Blubber” Billboard

After harsh nationwide criticism, including a protest here in Portland last week,PETA is removing the woman-as-whale billboard erected outside Jacksonville, Florida. In its place, they’re putting up a new ad about losing weight via vegetarianism:

That’s the news from PETA campaign coordinator Lindsay Rajt, who I had an interesting conversation with yesterday. Personally, when I was vegetarian, I was always a little embarrassed to be associated with PETA. Their campaigns featuring women in skimpy lettuce bikinis and naked women in cages seem like the tactics of a desperate, marginalized group, not a level-headed, mainstream movement with six to eight million members. I was excited to have Rajt to explain the thinking behind PETA’s ads.

How do you respond to feminist protests that these ads are sexist and misogynistic?
There’s just a fundamental difference in viewpoint here. We believe that people should have the choice to use their bodies to make a political statement. A provocative campaign will get attention and we’ve received numerous phone calls from people who saw the Save the Whales billboard and are going to try out vegetarianism because of it.

Many of the people who criticize your campaigns are vegetarians and vegans themselves. Aren’t you worried about offending people who would otherwise support you guys?
It certainly wasn’t our intent to offend anybody. At the same time, people need to realize that if they’re choosing to eat meat and eggs, they’re putting themselves at risk for things like high cholesterol. We take obesity seriously. What would really be cruel would be to not tell people about the health benefits of going vegetarian. I would personally rather be offended by the ad and have it save my life because it changed my behavior than not have noticed it at all.

But why do so many of your campaigns use the bodies of women to make their point? Another of the feminist complaints is that most of the ads feature women who are traditionally attractive—skinny and big breasted.
We do a wide variety of advertising and some of our campaigns feature men. They just, for whatever reason, don’t usually get as strong a reaction. PETA isn’t a wealthy corporation, we have to rely on getting media coverage of our campaigns. The facts alone are not interesting enough for the majority of the public.