I honestly thought I’d seen the last media coverage on Santino the chimp when I wrote my previous post on him. Or, at least, I thought the low point had been reached.
People’s capacity for simplification and their hunger for lowbrow entertainment have no limits, though, and in today’s Swedish Metro he pops up again.
The headline to the pictured article reads “He applauded the queen”. Queen Silvia visited the Furuvik zoo where he’s kept, and the subject has changed from his paradigm-changing display of foresight onto that of her royal safety.
Reduced from a creature capable of abstract thought that may parallel our own, he is now described as a stone-throwing monkey that “didn’t get the oppurtunity” to take a swing at her highness.
Just as the press ignores that two weeks ago, Santino was cause for rethinking our view of how chimps (and possibly other animals) perceive the world, it is also forgotten that the poor guy has been neutered to counter his hostility toward guests.
I could go on about our devotion to royal bloodlines as a metaphor of how mankind see ourselves in relation to animals, but I can’t be bothered.
Nor will I draw parallels between the effects of castration on Santino’s behavior (and the loss of insight into the animal mind that that entails) and the way comfy, celebrity chit-chat disguised as reportage numbs the public mind and keeps the readers from having an opinion about anything outside primetime TV.
I’m really too sad and disillusioned, and yes, I just might go hug a tree now, thankyouverymuch.
Tags: animal rights, chimp, consciousness, media, Santino