Tipsheet

PETA's Anti-Thanksgiving Ads Are Unintentionally Hilarious

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  November 28, 2024 12:00 PM

People are laughing at the latest PETA attack ad against cooking and consuming Thanksgiving turkey.

In the lead-up to the beloved holiday, PETA put out a PSA sexualizing the process of stuffing a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

"Let's open up those legs," a man in the PETA illustration says.

"And stuff it...all the way!" his wife, biting her lower lip, adds, with her hand plunged inside the bird's body cavity.

Their children, watching in the background, exclaim with disgust, "EW!" and "Gross!" Even the family's dog is drawn visibly aghast.

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PETA captioned the graphic design: "If stuffing a turkey feels wrong, that's because it is."

Turkey-loving patriots flocked to the post's replies to roast PETA over crying "fowl."

"PETA are weirdos," one X user wrote.

Another similarly said, "Why y'all gotta make everything weird?"

Some announced they're buying extra turkey for double the stuffing this year on account of PETA's posturing. 

In response to the backlash, the anti-animal-eating organization's X account repeatedly replied in the comments section with various links to "FREE vegan starter kits" (courtesy of PETA) and substitute recipes for plant-based roasts as vegetarian alternatives to turkey, such as "tofu-rky."

"Animals aren't food," PETA replied. "They are living, breathing beings with feelings—just like us! Show them the respect they deserve by going vegan."

But the biggest thing the social media mob faulted them for was the left-wing activist group's choice to depict an interracial couple, a show of diversity, in the cartoon already jam-packed with woke messaging.

"When you say it out loud, it's clear this 'norm' isn't normal..." PETA posted.

One X user retorted, "Is this Peta ad condemning interracial relationships?"

"Are you accusing black women of sexually molesting dead turkeys?" another asked.

"We have a biracial couple sexually assault[ing] a turkey in front of the children and family dog," someone said, parodying the PETA pitch session that proposed this trainwreck of an advert.

Others wondered whether this was a parody PETA profile. "I'm convinced this is a satire account lmao gold," someone said.

PETA previously caught flak for a Thanksgiving display last year, in which a man wearing nude-colored underwear laid on his back in birthing position next to a plastic turkey atop a table. Beside him, as he spread his thighs apart, ready to be stuffed, a sign said, "Place Yourselves in Their Place."

PETA has repeatedly reversed the roles of consumption in hypothetical scenarios, in which turkeys rule over Earth and eat humans.

Among the agency's other stunts this Thanksgiving season, PETA protested the White House's annual turkey pardoning ceremony by sending a car covered with imagery of birds crammed into crates, which was meant to look like a realistic turkey transport truck, to the nation's capital. Passersby heard sounds of screaming turkeys purportedly headed to the slaughterhouse.

PETA demanded that President Joe Biden not partake in this "humiliating" tradition. "No more meat industry malarkey!" PETA urged. The lame duck president should spare the two turkeys plucked for Monday's pair of presidential pardons, PETA said, framing it as a foul festivity for the feathered friends. Biden ultimately pardoned the poultry, and they'll now peacefully live out the rest of their days as ambassadors at an agricultural literacy center in Minnesota.

PETA also asked the city of Tempe in Arizona to temporarily change its name to "Tempeh" as part of their activism efforts to encourage Americans to switch from turkey to tempeh.

"Turkeys are feeling individuals who love their families and value their lives..." PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman said in a press statement.

If city leadership agrees to the "tempehrary" one-day name change, PETA will donate a number of dishes formed from fermented soybeans.

"To put it soyccinctly: Tempeh is a soysational food!" PETA's president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a Nov. 18 letter addressed to Tempe Mayor Corey D. Woods, touting the "tempehting suggestion" they hope he'll "gobble up."

For years, PETA has been urging Americans to take turkey off the table and instead celebrate "ThanksVegan," a day to feast on meat-free roasts and mashed potatoes made with dairy-free milk.

PETA says it's "speciesist" to see turkeys as less worthy of human affection than other domesticated animals like dogs and cats.

"Speciesism—like sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination—is an oppressive belief system in which those with power draw boundaries to justify using or excluding their fellow beings who are less powerful," according to PETA.

Humans use the "supremacist" line of reasoning and sentience argument to place themselves above animals in society, PETA says. "Nonhuman animals are not objects that belong to us—they're individuals with their own interests, just like us."

As an example of this "superiority" complex, "Animals are often referred to as property. Many humans call themselves an animal's 'owner' and refer to the animal as 'it,' as if he or she were an inanimate object like a table or a chair," PETA laments.