PETA Global 2018 Issue 1

Q & A

Famous ‘Gonzovationist’

Back in 2006, when PETA and its affiliates sounded the alarm over the Australian wool industry’s abuse of sheep, award-winning artist Ralph Steadman – perhaps most famous for his collaborations with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson – created and donated a provocative painting of a blood-soaked lamb on a crucifix for PETA with the tagline “Have mercy on them.” PETA UK recently talked to him and fellow “gonzovationist,” filmmaker Ceri Levy, about their new book, Critical Critters, and more. Steadman Ralph Talks to PETA UK

Ralph Steadman: © Rikard Österlund

PETA UK: Your piece “Sheep on Cross” caused quite a stir with advertising companies in Australia that were too scared of sheep farmers to rent billboard space to PETA. Ralph: I remember that painting well. Was pleased to do it as I don’t like cruelty. I once had a sheep called Zeno. … Zeno lived in my house with me, with a sheepdog I had named Flop. … Wonderful sheep, that Zeno. And wonderful dog. PETA UK: Like you, PETA finds that humor is often the best approach. Ralph: I like PETA activism! The meat tray demos, even once in a while a pie in someone’s face, like vaudeville! Ceri: He wants to custard pie the world. Ralph: Instead of killing everywhere, shoot, shoot, shoot … custard pies! It’d make a mess, but it’s a good mess. PETA UK: With your books – Critical Critters, Extinct Boids, and Nextinction – you’ve hit on a great and madly funny way to get people to pay attention to wildlife issues. Ralph: Yes. We thought, if you are going to do this, rather than be all stern, just bring a smile with it. A bit of laughter with a kind face, and people will take an interest. Instead of being preached at. PETA UK: Ralph, you actually accompanied Hunter S. Thompson to the Kentucky Derby, where horses break their legs – and worse.

Ralph: I think most of it is cruel. I don’t really like what they do. Ceri: I don’t like horseracing. I think it’s stupid. PETA UK: In working to end the abuse of animals for entertainment, PETA shut down Ringling Bros. – the biggest circus in the world – and is pushing to get animals out of all other circuses as well. Ralph: I really like that. I had one across the road. They’d come every year and set up opposite where we lived on New Kings Road. And the sound of the animals at night, some of them would sound really unhappy, and there was the thing on how they push them to work. I sensed there was some unpleasantness that I wasn’t able to see. … I’m not really keen on zoos actually, either. Ceri: I remember circuses as a kid. I hated them. I used to cry, “Why are they hitting the animals?!” PETA UK: PETA revealed that dogs in Texas and France are being bred to develop a crippling form of muscular dystrophy for use in painful experiments. Do you have any thoughts about that? Ralph: Only that it’s totally unethical and wrong.

PETA UK: Thanks, Ralph and Ceri – you said it!

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