Alicia Silverstone would rather go naked than wear wool. And she's making that very clear in her new ad for PETA, in which she poses nude holding a sheep mask and standing with her back to the camera. A massive billboard of the image now stands near Times Square in New York City.I think I just found the silver lining in the PETA cloud.
"If you're trying to avoid wool, why not make that leap?" she suggests in a related video that's part of PETA's new #WoolFreeWinter campaign. "Say, 'I'm never going to buy wool again.'"
She continues, "Wool, in general, has not been thought about by many, many people. It's just not something that's brought to their attention. The biggest thing that people always say to me is, "Oh, but they just shear the sheep! They don't kill the sheep.'" The video then cuts to graphic images of sheep being tortured for their wool, the very fabric that's in the sweater you are probably wearing right now.
As the PETA website goes on to explain, "If they were left alone and not genetically manipulated, sheep would grow just enough wool to protect themselves from temperature extremes. The fleece provides them with effective insulation against both cold and heat." Additionally, it notes, "Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without any regard for the welfare of the sheep. This hasty and careless shearing leads to frequent injuries, and workers use a needle and thread to sew the worst wounds shut -- without any pain relief. Strips of skin -- and even teats, tails, and ears -- are often cut or ripped off during shearing."
They have a bucket they put the extra parts in after they're done shearing the sheep.
The 40-year-old star once famously debated in behalf of "Haiti-ans" in Clueless, but now she's arguing in behalf of sheep, and as usual, she makes a good point. "It's on the slaughterhouse floor, where it's on a conveyor belt, and it's going that fast. It's just so fast -- the shearing process -- that they're cut, they're harmed. They get very seriously wounded, and there's no care for them when they're wounded. It's just, 'Move on to the next,'" Silverstone states in the video. "These are not creatures to the people who are doing this. They're just objects. When the sheep are no longer useful, they're killed."
Sheep death panels?
This is not Silverstone's first foray into PETA activism. In the early 2000s, she appeared in a video for the organization about being a vegetarian and how it has made her feel better and has given her more energy.
OK, now I'm inspired to go tell Angie Harmon that bears are having to use nettles because budget cuts to the National Park Service have resulted in no more toilet paper being put out for them to use. Of course, she has a brain so it probably won't work.