Cynthia Chris

It's been a growing trend since about the mid-1990s.

Jurassic Park is a real breakthrough in that regard, where we start to see animals, whether they're very, very realistic or whether they're quite imaginary, appearing in a really realistic aesthetic in screens and opting for those animals, those digital animals, instead of

going to one of the Hollywood rental agencies and hiring a trained animal.

Well, I think that there's a number of reasons for this.

And one is that there has been a history of activism by groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against the use of animals in film and TV.

So, you know,

Productions risk, if accidents happen on the set, if anything bad happens, you know, certainly risk garnering really, really unwelcome and negative, but deserve negative attention when that kind of stuff happens.

And it does happen.

You know, animals can be injured on set and animals can even die on set.

You know, I remember reading an anecdote once from somebody who wrangled insects for film and TV and she said, you know,

If there's a cockroach in my kitchen, I'm going to squash it.

But if I take a thousand cockroaches to a movie set, a thousand cockroaches go home.

And that's someone who is trying to practice animal acting, animals appearing on screen in an ethical fashion, right?

But I do think that we've become much more uncomfortable about seeing things like chimps, big cats, elephants in captivity and in this kind of situation.

Look, the record isn't perfect.

And a number of years ago, The Hollywood Reporter did a big expose about some accidents that had happened on scenes that still got that stamp.

And that should make us wary about what's going on in films where animals, especially so-called exotics, the big cats, the primates, and so on, appear.

On the whole, yes, having observers on the scene who write reports about how the animals were treated is a very, very positive thing.

And on the whole, I think that they've done real good for the industry, but it's an imperfect record.

Well, that became a big concern of mine when I started thinking about this a few years ago for something that I wrote.