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Artist News
Katy Perry casts elephant in Roar clip, PETA hate her
By Aly Barchi | Published on Monday 14 October 2013
Katy Perry has felt PETA’s (slightly belated) wrath as regards the elephant that appears in the video for her recent single ‘Roar’. PETA’s beef is that the animal, Suzy, was likely “violently captured” and then mistreated, and that Perry and her team’s decision to cast an endangered wild creature in a pop video was therefore irresponsible and exploitative. Which, to be fair, it kind of is.
Oscar-winning director Chris Palmer, a PETA advocate, asks (via WENN): “How did Suzy, a member of a threatened species from Africa, find herself next to Katy Perry on a California film set? She was violently captured from her free-roaming herd in Zimbabwe when she was two years old and shipped to the US, where she was most likely bound and beaten in order to make her perform without complaint”.
He adds: “Only when stars, directors and producers stop forcing exotic animals onto soundstages will these sensitive and sophisticated animals get a reprieve. Katy Perry may be one of the biggest popstars in the world, but next to that sad elephant, she looks like a very small person”.
Anyway, here’s the video, which I think we can all agree is adequately ‘wild’ even sans elephant.