Vegan Artists

I have a tendency to get very emotionally invested in my favorite artists. I like music, movies, books etc. that allow me to feel a connection to those involved in creating them. For this reason, I am always looking for artists who share my beliefs. The truth is that I don't like feeling emotionally invested in people who don't understand my values. That happens enough in real life, I don't need it to happen in entertainment too.

A while back, I spent a rather absurd amount of time desperately searching the internet for evidence that my favorite actors, musicians, writers etc. were vegetarian or vegan. I actually had some luck, but not as much as I had hoped for, and ended up wishing I had never looked in the first place. I had been deluding myself that, because I loved these people's art, I must have a lot in common with them and my search left me feeling very disheartened.

After that I decided that perhaps the best thing to do would be to intentionally seek out artists who were vegetarian or vegan and see if I liked them. There are actually quite a lot of them out there. The problem is that I also have rather unusual taste in just about everything. So the chances of someone being vegan and also creating something that I enjoy are somewhat slim. I have found myself trying to like things that I otherwise might not, just because vegans were involved in creating them. I think it may have actually been good for me. It has expanded my tastes quite a bit and I have learned to like a lot of new things.

The only real problem with this is that most people don't take veganism as seriously as I do. Just because someone is vegan today does not mean that they will be tomorrow. Knowing that my favorite actors, musicians, whatever, used to share my beliefs but then threw them away is somehow much more upsetting than knowing that they never understood in the first place. I do understand that veganism can be somewhat difficult for some people, especially if they weren't that committed to it in the first place, but it's still very hard to find out that someone I identified so much with has abandoned something that is so important to me. 

What I can't help but be infuriated by though, is people who used to be vegan suddenly deciding that veganism is completely stupid and ridiculous. I recently saw an interview with Ginnifer Goodwin who, some of you may know, was a rather outspoken vegan for a short time. She was even the spokesperson for Farm Sanctuary's Celebration FOR the Turkeys a few years back. Well, it turns out she's not anymore. During the interview she basically made it sound like she had lost her mind for a while and had finally regained her sanity. She talked about the fact that the rest of her family was still vegan and how much she hated having dinner with them. She described her annoyance with their commitment to veganism by saying "Are you serious? Let's get some cheese in this house." I can't understand how someone who used to be so dedicated to a cause could suddenly be so callous, even to her own family. I can't imagine how hurt I would be to see a member of my family on TV talking about my beliefs with such disrespect.

The other, and probably much more important, issue with celebrity ex-vegans is the amount of exposure they get. When a celebrity who used to be vegan suddenly starts speaking out against veganism, people listen. When someone is on TV talking about how hard it is to be vegan or the (fictional) health problems they developed as a result of not eating meat, other people use that to reinforce their own desire to maintain their current eating habits. As sad as it is, in our culture celebrities have an enormous amount of power and influence. When someone does what Ginnifer Goodwin did, it can be a huge blow to the cause.

So here is my plea to any vegan artists out there. Be outspoken about veganism. Tell people about all of the benefits. Tell them how easy it really is. Most importantly tell them why you're vegan. And if you decide to give it up, be honest about why. It's not because you had health problems. It's not because it was just too hard. It's not because you realized that eating meat wasn't so unethical after all. It's because you got selfish. That's the only excuse there is. You decided that eating a fucking hamburger was more important than your beliefs. Either own up to that or (PLEASE!) just keep your mouth shut about the whole thing. By the way, that goes for non-famous vegans too. We all have some amount of influence and we need to use it to our advantage if we are ever going to change the world.