Tuesday, November 06, 2007

I've been blogging about the dolphin slaughter for over a year now, doing what little I can to raise awareness of the drive fisheries in Japan that brutally slaughter thousands of dolphins every year.

• Putting a price on life


• Marine life day at AAFL


• Looking at Flipper, Seeing Ourselves


• Asia: Dolphin slaughter


• Japan Dolphin Day: September 20, 2006

I've even protested outside a Japanese embassy in Los Angeles:

Japan Dolphin Day Protest - L.A. Report
But nothing gets the attention of the media like a beautiful young Hollywood starlet, so I am glad that Hayden Panittiere has brought the slaughter to American televisions like no other activism has been able to do before:

You may have seen this AP footage already:


But here's the first I've seen of her breaking down and sobbing, and boy doesn't this ever drive home the heartbreak of this slaughter:


Cynics are bound to comment that Hayden Panittiere is an actor but, as an actor myself, my sense is that what most people don't realize is that acting is a process of stripping away the internal censors that prevent us from sharing our feelings openly, so that they become more available to us in the moment, creating a more sensitive person who is in touch with his or her feelings, which are therefore much closer to the surface. This is incredibly valuable when calling on emotions for important scenes when you're lucky to only get one or two takes on a busy TV schedule, but it can be painful when dealing with situations in real life, as you can clearly see from the second video.

I can only hope that Panittiere's reaction was mirrored by the millions of people that have seen the footage this week.

Save Japan Dolphins.

Labels: celebrities, dolphin slaughter, dolphins, marine rescue, wildlife