An Important Message Brought to YOU by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to

Sea Monkeys by

Experimental Filmmakers

(with guidance from the Kino-Ethics Society)

We IMPLORE you! When you attend screenings, DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN! Ask: WERE ANY SEA-MONKEYS HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THESE FILMS?! Yes, yes, we 'know': the screenings you attend are of impeccable integrity. Nonetheless, it's shocking what can sneak into even the most impregnable moral walls!

Let us tell you. AT LEAST 1 VERY WELL-KNOWN FILMMAKER OF GOOD REPUTATION HAS USED BRINE SHRIMP IN HIS FILMS TO ATTEMPT TO INDUCE "HYPNOGOGIC VISION"!! Hard though this may be to believe, a closer look will bring this & related horrors to light. This very same filmmaker has similarly treated the Gypsy Moth - whose name itself derives from its analogous relation to the plight of the European Raggle-Taggle Gypsy - nearly wiped from the face of the earth by the Nazis during the filming of WW II (apparently Leni Riefenstahl objected to the way they looked on screen). This unnameable has been waging his own war on God's tiny creatures for years now - perhaps inspired by some misguided jealous hatred of the former entomologist and Surrealist filmmaker, Luis Buñuel.

How is it that such violations as the above usually go unnoticed? Canonization. While the drastic over-emphasis of some filmmakers to the almost complete exclusion of others may SEEM to be just another of the many objectionable machinations of lazy critics & self-promoting HYPNOGOGUES used for banal career advancement, the deeper reality is far more sinister. Canonization is used as a way of LESSENING THE INTELLIGENCE & PERCEPTIVENESS of the viewing audience (vaudience) thru numbing their criticalness. Rather than paying attention to what's before their very senses, the vaudience allows itself to be hypnotized by the reputations & hype of the canonized. As such, the achievements of the Sea Monkeys gobbled up by these BIG FISH IN SMALL PONDS is sadly overshadowed NOT by the sometimes fictitious enormous brains of the Big Fish but by their more factual paunch. Keep in mind that the filmmakers whose work you're most exposed to simply have the advantage of wealth - NOT necessarily 'talent'. It's to someone's credit that this isn't always the case here.

Just as it's only a stone's-throw away from slaughtering cows for food to using their ears to make emulsion, so is it only a short step from the perception of "the adult brine shrimp Artemia [as an important] food source for fish and crustaceans raised in home aquariums, aquaculture systems, and [..] laboratories" (see the "Rhode Island Sea Grant FACT SHEET") to the exploitation of these unfortunates on the food chain to tools of unscrupulous 'Hypnogogy'-inducing Experimental Filmmakers! One need only read the February, 1956, issue of "All-Pets Magazine" to come across such unfeeling statements as "Within the confines of a two-gallon tank I have personally seen as many as 40 or more of these monsters and have used them for feeding my larger live-bearing and egg-laying tropicals."!!

It doesn't take a sprocket-scientist to realize that THE CONTEXTUALIZATION OF ANY LIFE-FORM AS A "MONSTER" (OR "SUBHUMAN" OR "SAVAGE") IS ONLY A RATIONALIZATION FOR THE SCAPE-GOATING OF THAT CREATURE for "feeding [..] larger [..] tropicals"! & how do we connect this to film? Let's analyze the advice found in Ward's Natural Science Establishment, Inc.'s "Culture Leaflet No. 10": "In using the larvae as food it is desirable to separate them from the unhatched eggs. This may be done by placing a light at one end of the pan or tray, using the cover to shield most of the pan from light. The larvae will collect at the lighted end and may be removed exclusive of eggs."

Sound familiar? Generally, when people witness films being projected, they have their attention directed to "a light at one end of the [room]". Could the purpose of this be to distract us from the isolation of our eggs? Think of this, a canonized filmmaker is paid to come to your local museum. They stand in front of the 'viewing audience' & provide commentary around the time that a light in the speaker's vicinity attracts the 'vaudience' to its image warmth. If the vaudience becomes too distracted by the "hypnogogy" of the light & hornswaggled by the 'smoke screen' of the speaker's explanation, their nest eggs can be spirited away before they 'know' what's happened. NEXT THING YOU 'KNOW', YOU'RE LIVING IN "A TWO-GALLON TANK" ROBOPATHICALLY ACCEPTING YOUR ROLE AS A "MONSTER" whose only purpose is to be eaten by those who've conned the world into uncritically accepting their 'exotic' status.

A Note on KES Terminology

K.E.S. utilizes both the terms "brine shrimp" and the affectionate "sea-monkey" in reference to the members of this particular species. "Sea-monkey" is in no way intended as a derogatory or condescending term, but recently a faction of the K.E.S. has argued that it is in fact both paternalistic and primatocentric. K.E.S. remains divided on this issue. Members in favor of retaining the brine shrimp's familar designation argue that the term inspires the affection of children and adults alike, while the radical opposition notes that historically the term has been utilized to support the enslavement and domestication of millions of brine shrimp by thousands of American and Canadian youngsters in the post WWII period of late Capitalism.

- S.P.C.S.M.E.F. - idioideo at verizon dot net