If the medium is the message, then animal rights, as conveyed by PETA, are a parade of B-list celebrities who get naked a lot while throwing around buckets of red paint and evoking the Holocaust to get attention.
And now, thanks to their new campaign, you can add, "while brandishing a piquant wit on par with the creators of Garbage Pail Kids" to that description.
If you've ever wondered, "How could a good cause, like boycotting fur, become really, really annoying?" Now you have your answer: Puns, puns, tired jokes, and still more puns.
From their press release:
After ignoring pleas to stop wearing fur and using it in their fashion collection, thin-twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are about to get some publicity that will have them running away faster than if they'd spotted a calorie. That's because peta2…will launch its "Trollsen Twins" campaign by unveiling an ad featuring images of fur fiends Mary-Kate and Ashley in the most unflattering photo that peta2 could find…
Peta2 has launched a brand-new Web site devoted entirely to the Trollsens—who are known on the site as "Hairy-Kate" and "Trashley." It features a "Fatal Fashion" animated dress-up game complete with animal skins and the accompanying blood; a mash-up video called "Full House of Horrors"
"Hairy-Kate and Trashley Trollsen"? Zing! Good one, PETA. No one told me that cheesy puns could make a difference—Just think of all the good causes The Simpsons could have championed with their "Treehouse Of Horror" credits alone.
(In case you're wondering if PETA is serious, anyone who has seen the recent HBO documentary about PETA, I Am An Animal, will tell you the answer to that question is always, "PETA is very, very serious." The best/weirdest part about that documentary? The scene where PETA's founder sets up an ersatz chill room for a traumatized turkey, complete with blankets, soft lighting, and a boom box playing soothing music. Even the turkey seemed perplexed. He was looking around the room as the music began to play like, "Seriously. I'm a turkey.")
Here are a few ideas for some future punny, celeb-skewering anti-fur PETA campaigns:
Sharon Stone: "Sharold Boner" Get it? She has a hard-on for wearing animals. Also, she's sooo old, she looks as dead as the dead animals used to make her coat!
Beyonce: "Beyonc-ew" How gross is fur? Not as gross as Beyonc-ew's stupid face, or her one-time singing group, "Destiny's Bile"!
Jennifer Lopez: "J. Ho" She's a slut—for animal pelts! She would probably drape her whole backside in fur if she could, but it would take all the animal skins in the world to cover her butt because it's so big. She has a big butt!
Britney Spears: "Brit-please-put-on-some-underwear Speared" Ms. Speared likes to wear nothing—between her legs, that is! So why does she wear some things made of fur?
P. Diddy: "Pee Deathly" He's never met a dead animal he didn't like—to wear. In addition, he pees! That's right: his body expels urine.