Animal Wrongs Group - Television Tropes & Idioms

I'm a political prisoner
Trapped in a windowless cage
'Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips
By killing five men in a rage

The Arrogant Worms, Carrot Juice Is Murder

Animal rights' groups in television shows are often portrayed as completely insane (and with names that form silly acronyms). In many cases, they don't seem to care how many people get hurt (often by their own actions), as long as animals are okay. To them, it's perfectly reasonable to care more about the cow enslaved

to produce a carton of milk than the missing child on the side (granted, missing children haven't been posted on milk cartons in decades).

Occasionally subverted, with the animal rights group used as a patsy for the true villains' plot (though the ignoramuses in the front organization usually believe in their own agenda whole-hog while taking the Big Bad's money).

A common role in fiction is to break into the lab of a Mad Scientist, and release his genetic aberration or terrible virus or upsetting his delicate experiments, with catastrophic results. In some cases this will be accidental or the activists wellmeaning but misinformed, but in some they will know they're releasing a monster, and do it anyway. Expect particularly clueless members of these organizations to react to these beasties (or, indeed, standard dangerous animals such as tigers) with fawning coos and an apparent belief that the animal is either Fluffy The Terrible or will somehow recognize them as an Animal Rights activist and not harm them. This belief will inevitably be rewarded with a very painful death moments later.

To some extent, Truth In Television: Extremist groups do exist, and have done horrible things. Such incidents tend to be centred on the staff of high-profile animal testing laboratories or universities, for instance, the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty attacked staff of Huntingdon Life Sciences, business partners of the organization, their families, and so on. This is well documented, High Court Injunctions against the group exist, and many members have been arrested. The Other Wiki has a fairly well-documented article on them here

That said, the key word here is extremist: Most organizations who look after animal welfare (such as the RSPCA and various animal shelters) stay far away from such insanity, instead concentrating on actually helping animals, and reasonable, restrained actions against people who genuinely abuse animals, such as taking the animals away, and prosecuting the person in court. In real life, there are different flavors of movements looking out for the interests of animals. Taking note of which movement a group classifies itself as can help identify which ones fit this trope:

Animal welfare groups: Usually outside this trope. These groups seek to minimize suffering from animals, but doesn't object to animals being used as food, companionship,or otherwise. They just don't want animals to suffer needlessly. This site gives a good overview of the animal welfare philosophy. As a general rule, these groups are non-violent, act within the law, genuinely care about animals, but also people, and the only resemblance between them and the groups in this trope are .
Animal rights groups: Often resemble the less-extreme versions of this trope. These groups see any human interaction with an animal as inherently exploitative and abusive. They honestly believe owning an animal is no different than owning a human. They are the ones that hope to completely separate humans from animals—which doesn't just mean no eating meat, but also means no having pets, no working or companion animals, or anything. PETA (see below) is the most well-known champion of this flavor, but they're criticized by other animal rights activists for not going far enough. The Other Wiki's introduction to the Animal Rights article puts it simply: "Advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions but agree that animals should be viewed as legal persons [...] not property, and that they should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment." May have a certain amount of hypocrisy, for instance, PETA thinks pet ownership is slavery, so routinely euthanizes animals left with them, and, perhaps even worse, takes adoptable animals from shelters in order to euthanize them. May also be fairly anti-human, for instance, PETA is against guide dogs for the blind. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, PETA tends to be the basis for a lot of examples of this trope.
Animal liberation groups: Resemble the more extreme versions of this trope, except these groups exist in real life, and kill real people: These groups want animals "freed" from human contact and they want it now. This is where you'll find "veganarchists" and the ALF, the people who aren't afraid of using violence to force people to give up their animals. Sea Shepherd also applies, at least in the case of whales and marine life. May involve firebombing, harassing and threatening relatives of people who work for animal testing laboratories, and so on. Some of these are considered terrorist groups, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security included ALF as a terrorist threat, and this report by the Southern Poverty Law Center discusses, among other things, an insurance company being threatened with violence because an animal testing lab had a policy with it. Other incidents are not at all uncommon.

A type of Strawman Political in some ways, with the caveat that, you know, some such groups really have tried to kill people. Compare The Cruella, where the other side is shown to extremes. Also, as with other tropes in The War On Straw, show Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment when making Truth In Television examples for this article, and cite any claims you make, lest this page become a meta-example.