Greenpeace and Mother London warn of the damaging effects of the meat industry through a new animation

Titled There’s a Monster in my Kitchen, the animation tells the story of a displaced jaguar from Brazil and how he wound up in one young boy’s kitchen.

Date
23 October 2020

Share

Greenpeace, the global environmental organisation campaigning to defend the natural world, and stand for a green and peaceful future, have released an emotional and stirring animation bringing the damaging effects of the meat industry into focus. Titled There’s a Monster in my Kitchen, the film is a sequel to the incredibly successful Rang-Tan and was created by Mother London and produced by four-time Oscar-nominated studio Cartoon Saloon.

Through the story of a displaced jaguar called Jag-wah, the film takes aim at deforestation across South America, as we learn the horrors that Jag-wah has experienced. Namely, the loss of his once lush and green home in place of farmland for cattle to graze and to grow feed for animals which end up on plates around the world. This story is told to a young boy who sneaks down to get a snack in the middle of the night and, in turn, learns about how the meat industry is destroying habitats and of the plant-based alternatives available.

On this narrative and why they chose it, Ana Balrin from Mother explains that “the impact of industrial meat production in South America is so vast and challenging to visualise that we chose to bring it to life through a human story, which makes the issue more relevant to our audience’s lives and offers them tangible action for positive change.”

While the film appears childlike through its animation style and the cadence of the voice over, the stats that back it up are shocking as meat is the single biggest driver of deforestation worldwide. The demand for beef and animal feed crops like soya are the key reason for South American forests clearance and 90 per cent of all soya produced is used in animal feed. “Meat is at the heart of much of South America’s habitat destruction,” says John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK. “Our relentless desire for meat on ever-increasing industrial scales is having lasting consequences for the health of our planet and ourselves. If we protect nature, nature will help protect us.”

The film is narrated by Wagner Moura, a Brazilian actor best-known for his role as Pablo Escobar in Narcos, who delivers the story in the style of a nursery rhyme. The goal of the film is to encourage individual actions and collective activism (highlighted with a scene featuring Paul McCartney) to pressure companies and governments to save the forests. On this, Sauven adds: “Everyone can make a difference. But it is the retailers and suppliers of meat who can have the most dramatic impact by cleaning up their supply chains.” It’s a particularly pertinent message as 2020 has seen new records set for fires in the Amazon and off the back of “new analysis by Greenpeace of the latest fire data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, shows an area almost equivalent to the UK has burned across Brazil so far this year,” a recent press release states.

Hero Header

Mother London and Cartoon Saloon: There’s a Monster in my Kitchen for Greenpeace (Copyright © Greenpeace, 2020)

Share Article

About the Author

Ruby Boddington

Ruby joined the It’s Nice That team as an editorial assistant in September 2017 after graduating from the Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. In April 2018, she became a staff writer and in August 2019, she was made associate editor.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.