Chipotle’s Scarecrow
Have you seen the new web-ad by Chipotle, “The Scarecrow?”
Wow. The video follows scarecrow on his trip to work in a factory farm. Needless to say, it’s sad, and it shows a well animated, but in overall message, a truthful view of factory farming. (The cow at 1:36 is when you cry.)
Watch it here:
That’s all well and good, but it kind of misses the point. I mean, The animals are clearly miserable in the video, but that’s cool, I don’t contribute to that anyway. The food (a burrito?) that the scarecrow makes appears to be vegetarian, and I’m cool with that, especially since the chain has veg-friendly black beans, and a vegetarian burrito gets you free guacamole.
Side note: Have I discussed my love for guacamole? I should. Maybe a whole month dedicated to the awesome avocado.
The video is also an ad for their new iPhone game, “The Scarecrow,” where you are playing the scarecrow, I assume on his escape from the factory farm. I have an android, so, I don’t get to play that game. (Not cool, Chipotle)
All of this leads to the question, if Chipotle is so opposed to how these animals are being treated, and in fact, they even refer to the city in the video, The City of Plenty, as “a glimpse at a future that may not be far off,” then why do they take part in the confinement and death of animals at all? The beef in their restaurants came from cows that were just as sad and scared to die as the cow that makes you cry.
Do they honestly think that just because their cow didn’t live its whole life in a box that it’s happy to be hung by one leg and have it’s throat slit, so that it can bleed out surrounded by animal carcasses? I don’t think that they’re that naive,
In fact, Funny or Die made a video called Honest Scarecrow mocking the Chipotle video for its clear self-serving drive. Now, I’m not that worried about whether or not the video is self serving (it is) but more so the fact that, according to Alexandra Petri from the Washington Post, one of her friends described the video by saying that The Scarecrow “doesn’t make me want to eat Chipotle. That makes me want to curl up in a vegan coma and never eat again.”
Wait! I’m vegan! That means that I have nothing to worry about. In fact, I keep trying to push Chipotle on Twitter to get their vegan sofritas into the Baltimore/DC area.
They haven’t gotten here yet, but they will, and when they do, I’ll eat them! In theory, Chipotle is on its way to being more and more sustainable through offering more vegan and vegetarian options. Before long, hopefully they’ll see the light and start replacing their chicken with Beyond Meat chicken-free strips, and once that happens, well, then is there a question about the amount of lives that they can save?
What was your opinion of the Chipotle video? Do you agree with me, and Alexandra Petri’s friend, that it suggests taht veganism is the far, far superior option to eating meat?
A Vegan in the World 
Those were exactly the feelings I had watching the video. First, so sad and with them in their message, then confused once I thought about the fact that they still sell meat. I understand that they are a corporation and have to cater to many tastes, but it made me wonder why they made the ad at all if their message would be undermined by their own menu.
I totally agree. The only thing I can think of is what the Blonde said to me when she showed me the video; maybe Chipotle is trying to slowly get out of the meat business. Can you imagine if they started using Beyond Meat instead of chicken? That would be awesome.
Seriously! And by the way, I’ve had the Sofritas and they’re great!
I’m more than a little jealous…
[…] According to Gary Francione and some other skeptics, absolutely not. But according to many others, including myself, it could be a vital stepping-stone in getting people to question what they are […]
Chipotle’s “Scarecrow”: A Call to Veganism? | Animal Blawg said this on October 8, 2013 at 9:06 pm |
I’d not seen this one. Thanks for sharing it. I do remember the other video from a couple of years back, Back to the Start.
Chipotle is on a good path, but I wish it would do more. I realize that there are people out there that feel they “need” to eat meat, and that’s okay. Perhaps if those choices on the menu reflected the true cost of what goes into “producing” it (sounds weird, producing a living being), the veggie choice would become the better option.