I decided that I wanted to analyse how animals are being used and how the concept of animal rights was being portrayed in a medium that I love - television. As a huge fan of the tv show Psych, I've decided to take a closer, more critical, look at this funny and playful show. As the main characters Shawn and Gus are animal lovers, and animals always are the victims, never the perpetrators, of crime on this show, my main focus will not be on the characters' attitudes toward animals, but rather the actual use of animals on the show.
This essay consists of the following chapters:
Many of the Psych storylines involve animals and we've seen e.g. dogs, a cat, rabbits, horses, a mountain lion, an ostrich, deers, dolphins, an owl, a lemur and a polar bear on the show. None of the episodes feature information in the credits about where the animals come from, which forces me to make conclusions based on what seems most probable, rather than confirmed facts.
I assume that these animals come from one of two places: either animal rental companies, or zoos. When it comes to animal rental companies, I can't really find any justification for their existance. Breeding and training animals for the purpose of them being used as actors or props, I find deeply unethical. Zoos, however, may be a different matter. There can be huge differences between zoos. Some zoos are sure to be completely dependant on the proceeds from paying visitors who only come there to pet or watch shows with trained animals; while other zoos are non-profit organizations with staff that are deeply concerned with animal welfare and who rescue injured animals and rehabilitate them back into the wild; and some zoos are probably somewhere inbetween. My personal opinion is that animals should never exist for the purpose of public display or trained for the entertainment of humans; that animal rescue centers should receive generous government funding and not be dependant on paying visitors; that animals always should be in centers located in the countries and climate of where they naturally belong; and that the goal always should be to (re)habilitate animals back into the wild.
Regardless of where the animals come from though, I don't think they ever belong on a television set where there must always be a financial interest that the animals behave in the way producers and television networks want them to do.
The animals on Psych have been used as follows:
In "Thrill Seeker and Hell-Raisers," Shawn and Gus are petting rabbits while expressing their "intense love of bunnies"; in "Six Feet Under the Sea" an owl sits on a man's shoulder; in "Weekend Warriors" there are horses in the Civil War re-enactment; in "Christmas Joy" there are reindeers in Santa's Village; in "Let's Get Hairy" there's a deer in the forest; in "Dead Bear Walking" there is a lemur on the zoo director's shoulder; in "Spellingg Bee" there is one dog in the flashback that is running around, and later there is another dog which Henry is (unaffectionately) holding; in "Zero To Murder In Sixty Seconds" there's a German shepherd acting as a police dog; and in "9 Lives" Shawn is walking around with a cat in his arms during a large part of the episode, at the end of which the cat also jumps off a bookcase onto a man's shoulder.
The mountain lion in "Forget Me Not" has minor make-up on it to look like a wound, and in "Earth, Wind and... Wait for It" Shawn gives Gus a dog with spots on its belly and back to look like a dalmatian; Gus discovers them and wonders if Shawn painted the spots on the dog. I ask myself the same question and wonder whether the Psych team indeed have painted on a live dog for the sake of the story, or if the spots have been added digitally; for some reason I doubt that they would have gone to the trouble of digital editing, but I don't know. What must have been added digitally though, is the tennis ball sized object in the ostrich's throat in "Forget Me Not".
In "Dead Bear Walking" a polar bear gets to be at several different indoor and outdoor locations, e.g. in the Psych office. An animal rights activist says how cruel it is to keep a polar bear in a zoo under poor conditions, but I can think of an even more unnatural combination: a polar bear on a television set. The polar bear is said to be the only trained polar bear in the world, and by googling I found a Daily Mail article which states that the polar bear is named Agee and lives with her trainer and his wife in Abbotsford, Canada. The polar bear was entered into showbiz as a cub when a director needed a polar bear cub for a movie set in Alaska, and picked Agee who was considered a "surplus cub" at a Swedish zoo; and Agee has been "acting" ever since.
In "Six Feet Under the Sea," Shawn and Gus are at an aquarium where they see dolphins swimming in a pool and where Shawn also interacts with a speaking dolphin. This episode was shot at the Vancouver Aquarium.
The horses in "And Down the Strech Comes Murder" are racehorses at a racecourse. To me, horse racing is not a sport, but rather an excellent example of where the welfare of the horses is extremely dependant on the financal interest and whims of humans. Psych is not the first tv show to have a horse racing episode and I often wonder why it is that tv shows feel so compelled to support this "sport" by having their characters on the track. This episode was shot at the Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver, Canada.
Two episodes feature animals that have been killed: the sea lion in "Six Feet Under the Sea", which I'm grateful to say, was a fake; and a shark in "The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode", which I assume also was fake (as opposed to dead or sedated animals). I will therefore not discuss them further.
Fishing is an interest many characters have on television though, and on Psych it's Henry Spencer who's the main fishing buff. A character who enjoys fishing does not mean however that dead fish need to be used on the show. In "Zero To Murder In Sixty Seconds" there are several dead fish on Henry's table. First there is a close-up of the fish getting scaled and filleted, which makes Gus barf, and a little later there is a close-up of the fish getting its head chopped off. My personal reaction to a shot like this is, like Gus, revulsion. To me, fish is just like any other animal; I would be horrified if I had to witness somebody chop the head off a rabbit, a cow, or a pig, and I'm sure others feel the same way, which is why I'm sure those animals will never be decapitated on Psych. But for some reason, that consideration for the viewer apparently doesn't apply when it comes to fish.
More episodes that feature dead fish are e.g. "The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode" and "Six Feet Under the Sea".
Another issue when it comes to dead animals is taxidermy. In many shows, there will be the head of a wild animal that has been shot to death by a hunter, hanging on the wall like a trophy in one episode or another. Again, Psych is no exception. In "Dis-Lodged" there is a stuffed owl and a stuffed beaver in the lodge; in "Forget Me Not" there are stuffed birds and horns; in "The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode" there is a dead turtle in the shark expert's workplace; and in "Shawn (And Gus) of the Dead" there's a stuffed deer, and at the museum a wolf pelt and even a stuffed polar bear. In "Let's Get Hairy" there is a stuffed owl and a stuffed beaver in the psychiatrist's office, and in this episode Shawn even wears a wolf pelt (again). Gus, however, expresses his great dislike for taxidermy and says that he is even part of an anti-taxidermy campaign online which aims to abolish the practise of taxidermy completely. However, despite the disclaimer of saying that taxidermy is a bad thing, Psych still uses stuffed animals, and thus financially encouraging hunting and taxidermy, since they show that there is a demand for these products in showbusiness.
In "He Dead," the opening flashback consists of Henry and a young Shawn trying to get out of a dinner invitation to their neighbors, because they are vegans and will be serving tofu. Shawn fakes being sick because "they're the weirdest family on the entire block" and "they eat weird food," explaining that "they don't even eat meat". Henry defends them by saying that all families are weird, all food is weird until you try it, and wonders if Shawn means that they're vegetarians. But after Shawn says "I think they call it vegan" and they hear their neighbors shout "you guys ready for some barbecue tofu," Henry starts faking illness as well. Personally, I'm growing weary of the stereotypical image of vegans as tofu-loving weirdos who are completely oblivous to the fact that some people (myself included) hate tofu, and happily serve it to meat-eating guests.
In "The Polarizing Express" Shawn tries to get Carlton Lassiter to hug him. Carlton, who hates Shawn, states: "I would rather fall in love with a vegan," to which Shawn replies "that's fair". In other episodes he has stated things such as "I would rather French-kiss a hobo" and "I would rather adopt a child," but why he hates vegans, I don't know. (Perhaps he is under the misguided impression that 'vegan' equals 'hippie'?)
In "Meat Is Murder, But Murder Is Also Murder" a vegan is also an animal rights activist and she is suspected of having killed a chef, because of the chef having seasoned the restaurant's veggie burger with meat. The suspect calls herself Vegan Vigilante and is according to a newspaper article "advocating any action" to put the chef out of business. She has chained herself to a pole outside a restaurant wearing a 'meat is murder' t-shirt, and, together with other activists, chanting "meat is murder," "stop eating your fellow creatures" and "all animals have the right to live". The "meat is murder" rhetoric is something I've heard on tv shows, but never once in real life. The vegan turns out to be innocent. In the same episode, Shawn expresses solidarity with the non-meat-eating population by saying "This guy secretely fed beef to vegetarians? Why are we trying to get him out of jail?" and displaying great weariness of Henry's repeated statements that if you eat burgers without beef "you've lost the right to complain about flavor".
In "Dead Bear Walking," an animal rights activist kidnaps a polar bear to save it from being killed. He expressed his great dislike for zoos where animals are kept "in fake rock habitats with plastic kiddy pools," stating that animals weren't meant to be in captivity. There are several things which I find stereotypical about him and which brings my thoughts to the hippie era of the 60s: the old van with the stickers on it (no peace sign painted on it though) and the notion that activists have poor personal hygiene. I wasn't born in the sixties so I don't know if it's ever been true, but why anyone would think that activists in particular would shower less often than anyone else is beyond me. That the activist wishes his food to be organic though I find perfectly believable; not only are activists often passionate about more than one issue, e.g. environmental issues, feminism and human rights, but more importantly is environmental awareness constantly increasing and is more current than ever. The activist's genuine love for animals and deeply rooted empathy is depicted by his starting crying at the thought of the polar bear's impending euthanization; Gus says "So you really do care for this bear, huh?," to which the activist replies "I care so much about all these creatures. I would never risk this bear being put down just to close the zoo".
In "The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode" the victim is an ocean activist, who among other things acts against whale-watching and illegal fishing. The activist is described as a "personal crusader" and the leader of the "extremist group" Oceans First, which stages elaborate protests and sends letters to the illegal fishing industry. The murderer is a big-time violator of the fishing laws, and kills the activist to silence him.
All activism shown on Psych has been in the most extreme form, which bears no proportion to reality. However, since all regular activism (information campaigns, petitions, etc.) very rarely makes the headlines, it's reasonable that it would never make it onto Psych either, since the show is all about crime.
Shawn and Gus are very loving towards animals and have a positive attitude towards other animal lovers and vegetarians. However, in the Psych world, there seems to be a line between vegetarian and vegan, where crossing it always means going from normal to weirdo. It's a view that is both incorrect and kind of offensive; but partly forgivable, since comedy wouldn't survive without stereotypes (no matter how dated they may be).
I think Psych wants to be an animal friendly show; e.g. when they use stuffed animals, they point out how unethical taxidermy is, and when an animal rights activist might be the murderer because the victim was somehow "anti-animal," it turns out that the activist is innocent. However, despite the characters loving animals very much, the actual use of animals on the show is not loving:
By using stuffed animals, Psych is morally and financially encouraging hunting, an occupation that is both obsolete and unethical; and by using live animals, Psych is, like many other shows, a willing participant in a line of business where animals are rented out and passed around from place to place to customers with a financial interest in the animals having been properly trained. Although the majority of the animals on Psych aren't there to perform a certain task, it is into that world that the animals are bred. To be moved around from place to place all the time may be stressful enough for the animals.
If there in the future arises a situation where the Psych team has to choose between a story and the non-use of animals, I sincerely hope that the choice will be made, without too much hesitation, in favor of the non-use of our fellow animals that we all love so much. Given the sheer brilliance of the Psych writers, special effects people and digital technology, I doubt it would be a problem.
Animals don't belong on television sets, and I hope that a complete non-use of animals policy by the USA Network and other television networks isn't something that is too far off in the future.
| Episode | Animal |
|---|---|
| 1.02 Spellingg Bee | dogs |
| 1.05 9 Lives | cat |
| 1.06 Weekend Warriors | horses |
| 1.09 Forget Me Not | ostrich, deers, mountain lion, stuffed birds, horns |
| 2.04 Zero To Murder In Sixty Seconds | dog, dead fish |
| 2.05 And Down the Stretch Comes Murder | racehorses |
| 2.06 Meat Is Murder, But Murder Is Also Murder | (vegan/animal rights activist) |
| 2.14 Dis-Lodged | stuffed owl, stuffed beaver |
| 2.16 Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead | stuffed polar bear, stuffed wolf, stuffed deer |
| 3.09 Christmas Joy | reindeers |
| 3.10 Six Feet Under the Sea | dolphins, dead fish, (fake dead sea lion) |
| 3.12 Earth, Wind and... Wait for It | dog |
| 4.02 He Dead | (vegan neighbors) |
| 4.08 Let's Get Hairy | deer, dog, stuffed wolf, stuffed owl, stuffed beaver |
| 4.11 Thrill Seekers and Hell-Raisers | rabbits |
| 4.15 The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode | dead fish, (fake dead/live shark), (ocean activist) |
| 5.14 The Polarizing Express | (vegan mention) |
| 5.15 Dear Bear Walking | polar bear, lemur, (animal rights activist) |
Text by: Helena
Published: 10/01/2011
Comments? Contact Helena
Photo © istockphoto.com/AntiMartina