I hope this doesn’t bring back the bad clowns.
It’s 146 years. Is that more than an era? I’m vague on how long an era is.
As a young boy, 40 years ago, I first went to a circus (Circus Vargas) full of anticipation and left it bored and disappointed, and wishing I had taken along my Coleco Electronic Football to stave off the tedium. Yes, I’m saddened by the end of an era, or whatever it is, but I’m also amazed it lasted this long.
Why? There’s a disturbing number of people out there (and on the boards) who treat animals as furry/four-legged humans. They’re not.
One of my very fond childhood memories was going to a circus with my parents in New Zealand, where they had an elephant and also a lion tamer. I must have been about five at the time at it was probably the coolest thing I’d ever seen at that point.
It’s one thing to see an elephant on TV and another one to see it walking around the ring, waving at people with its trunk. Similarly, seeing lion tamer in action really is something impressive
Everyone I know who has anything to do with animals treats them very well, and rightfully so. I can’t speak for Ringling Bros/Barnum & Bailey but from what I’ve read, it sounds like a case of the minority ruining it for everyone else (the minority being animal rights activists).
Basically, if I want to see talented people doing awesome physical stuff I’ll see something like Cirque du Soleil or one of the Shaolin Monk troupes. A circus without animals just isn’t the same to me.
I was never a circus fan. The few times the circus came to my West Texas area, it seemed boring as all get out. Much less exciting than the annual fair, which had rides and other neat stuff.
Even literally treating nonhuman animals as humans does not equate to “worshiping” them, so the hyperbole charge against aldiboronti still stands.
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
I can’t speak for Ringling Bros/Barnum & Bailey but from what I’ve read, it sounds like a case of the minority ruining it for everyone else (the minority being animal rights activists).
[/quote]
But it sounds as though what happened is that the “minority” changed enough minds among the “everybody else” that a significant number of “everybody else” stopped buying circus tickets.
I’m sure that Ringling Bros would happily go on ignoring a tiny minority of animal-rights protestors if the public at large were still filling its seats. The thing is that now a sufficient number of the public at large agree with the animal-rights protestors to create a significant drop in pro-circus sentiment.
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
Basically, if I want to see talented people doing awesome physical stuff I’ll see something like Cirque du Soleil or one of the Shaolin Monk troupes.
[/QUOTE]
I think that’s where “amazing live spectacle” events are probably headed worldwide. Animal watching will shift to documentary film and, for the affluent, occasional safari trips.
Circenses. As in panem et circences.
I remember one tour that I saw as a kid about 30 years ago. They had a “real live unicorn!”
The “unicorn” was an Island of Dr. Moreau style surgically altered goat.
Even as a child I thought, “Wow, that’s desperate. This organization is really on its way out.”
Didn’t you hear about all of the scary clown sightings a few months back?
Yeah, but now they’re unemployed clowns. If you thought they were scary before…
I totally agree. For those who loved it and will miss that type of entertainment I suggest Alternatives For The New Millenium:
Cirque du Soleil which is now pretty well known. Amazing shows with human performers of contortionism, acrobatics, clowns and more.
Cavalia which is new and not yet well known. This has a little bit of a Cirque vibe but stallions feature prominantly. And actually are the stars of the show. This company proves that positive-reinforcement training and high quality animal handling gives you better results than punishment/coercive training and shitty quality of care.
Tickets for both of these are expensive but they’re well worth saving money to go see. The ticket prices reflect the lack of penny pinching in training and caring for the performers as well as the logistics of moving the shows around. Here’s an interesting video showing how Cavalia transports the stallions.
Of course it’s hyperbole. You do realize that hyperbole is a time-honored element in the art of rhetoric or argument?
Which ISTM is how come rodeo is apparently still viable unlike circus animal acts, since it can focus on a segment of the public in a geographic and social distribution less vulnerable to the message.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey: This way to the egress. ---------->
The rodeo has actual domesticable animals, which can thus be trained without abuse. The abuses alleged by PETA haven’t been backed up by anything. Actual vets help with rodeo animals.
It’s just not the same thing.
Rest assured PeTA will be targeting Cavalia soon enough. They are opposed to any animal shows, any animal training, and would happily abolish not only the keeping of housepets but also service animals like Seeing Eye Dogs.
Cite? :dubious:
If that was hyperbole, what was it you actually meant? :dubious:
Where will unhappy children dream of running away to now?
I saw my first circus when I was four. There was a children’s area with low benches and handlers brought baby animals by for us to see between acts. I was half-delighted, half-terrified when a baby hippo snuffled my foot. I remember little else about that day, but I do remember the magic in the experience.
It might not have the same impact on a 2017 child as it did on my 1961 self. It is such a different world now and exotic animals are available to view in many venues. I am still a bit sad to know that my little grand babies won’t have the chance to find out.
This makes no sense. I’m sure the circus had excellent vets for their animals. There’s also plenty of abuse in rodeo. Ever watched calf roping, as just one example? How the broncs are spurred to make them buck?
Exploitation has nothing to do with whether an animal is “domesticable”; it has everything to do with money.
From the LA Times
I have worked with blind people who used Seeing Eye dogs. None of their dogs was kept “in harness 24/7”. In fact, for one of the people she used to remove the harness mid-day so I could walk her dog for her on a leash (she was getting frail and elderly but the dog still needed to pee and poop, even in a Chicago winter full of ice and snow). All of the dogs were played with as dogs every day for part of the day, including running around, chasing toys. When the lady’s dog became old and ready for retirement she did not give him away, he stayed with her and her husband and a new dog was brought into the household, at which point both dogs interacted with each other at the end of the day as dogs. The man I worked with kept a number of tug-toys in his office so mid-day he, too, could give his dog a break - he’d take off the harness, play with the dog for a bit, put the harness back on, walk him, and then they’d both get back to work.
In other words, his representation of the life of a Seeing Eye does not jibe with what I have, myself, witnessed.
PETA wishes to sterilize all “companion animals” which would, of course, mean that in an animal generation there would be no more “companion animals” for anyone:
In other words, they think it would best if the domestic dog were to go extinct.