I failed to get on a bus to go see the movie after a long wait in the rain for the cross harbour tunnel bus tonight, so I went home and watched it on the net instead. Very thought provoking……It is a drama about a teacher introducing a piglet to his graduating primary school class, and how the children who spent their days loving the little pig for one good school year challenged the initial agreement that the piglet should be eaten at the end of their school year. As barriers to let the piglet lives on begin to mount, they are being thrown into a difficult moral dilemma when they have to decide on the pig future before leaving school. Some film critics mentioned that the class’s arguments become circular, and could not lead them anywhere……

The class comes to an emotional deadlock as the debate on whether to send the not so small pig to a meat processing center after spending such a good time with it. The against-arguments are consistently about the pig is now special and is not just any pig, but now a member of the class. Through the process, they are now connected and related. Some started resisting and questioning eating pork, and finally, the best question, who has the power to decide how long a being could live on earth….

Those saying that they also love the pig migrated from less sophisticated argument — the class started with agreeing that the pig be eaten after a year after all humans need food to sustain themselves,  to  responsibility means to send it away to its destiny instead of passing it on to someone else who has less capacity than the class, and pass on the painful decision processes to them as well, and to that the pig will live on in their bodies.

After a three months deliberation, they are still stuck with a 50:50 split on the decision. Finally, the class teacher decided that the pig should go, as he could not find a farm or a zoo to take over the half grown and not so cute pig anymore. The decision seems to be a logical and inevitable one to the class and the teacher, as they are stuck in this ethical/moral dilemma of letting the pig to live or let die.   Yes, they are stuck indeed for many reasons — They have at the beginning defined the instrument use of the pig — it is ” food”, and have never challenged this category through out the whole process. Besides, they have not looked at the inhuman situation of slaughter houses and called it meat processing, reinforcing that the pig is indeed “meat” and omitting the harsh reality harboured within after all.  Some students’ deep connection with the piglet challenges this “food” definition momentarily, but are left without options in this adult-run world. The class fails to challenge this by bringing up various vegetarian traditions existing in their culture.  The young teacher is not helping. Another aspect that has sealed the pig and the class’s  fate is that with all the efforts they have mustered,  they have confined to resources that they have only,  instead of reaching out for help from a larger society by broadcasting their story through mass/social media or advertising for help. The teacher has only tried calling farms and zoos on his own.

A bit more about the class and the teacher not including vegetarianism in their argument and the reality happening in slaughter houses.  This gives ground for some students switching to normalize and romanticize meat eating and justifing their pro-sending away/anti-life stand.  These kids accepted pigs’ mission is to live for humans, so that humans could live on by eating them– as mentioned before, they argue that pigs will live on by becoming part of their bodies. Their ignorance about slaughter houses also dissociates them from the brutal killing processes and convinced them to accept the piglet’s final destiny, instead of challenging the power of humans over life.

Credits do have to be given to the movie as it challenges the disembodied ways of teaching in schools and vividly illustrates an engaging process makes a difference too by showing how the class and the school actively engaged the moral dilemma as children bonded with the pretty cutie little pig. Half the class stayed-put and sided with life and the piglet. The problem is that, they may also be learning “helplessness”, as their protest at the end is futile. Since the kids are not fully informed about the matter and thus to me, the other half of the class is being coerced and deceived to arrive at a place that is working against them. Given that the movie is based on a real story, therefore I wonder what happened to the kids in this social experiment. My concern goes to the kids in the movie too ——- the powerful participatory process apart from throwing half the class into “learned helplessness”, it also reinforced the distorted animal/nature-human relationship that is the source of so many unjust and environmental problems. Despite the gloomy analysis, I am sure that at less one or two would be about to stomach that battering final result as seeds of life have already planted in them and that will become a true animal/nature lover who will ask difficult questions and will push for real ethical decisions when they can call real shots……