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Circus Atmos-fear

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is coming to town. I remember going to the circus once as a youth. The animal acts didn't really impress me deeply. I thought they were OK, but I preferred the trapeze artists and the clowns. In the 19th century it must have been quite impressive to see a real elephant or a tiger, but I had seen all that at the zoo and on National Geographic. The magic was rather lost on a child such as myself.

It takes little research to find the Ringling Brothers is notorious for abusing animals. If one wishes to, one can view behind the scenes videos from animal rights groups. Elephants are poked with hooks. Panthers are beaten and drug about by the neck. If one does not care for the extremes of animal rights groups such as PETA, one can simply read some of the local papers where Ringling Brothers have been. Towns pass ordinances because of these people. Look it up.

Ringling Brothers have been repeatedly cited for failing to give their animals the same veterinary treatment that a typical farm horse gets. However, these animals are not like horses or cows or pigs. I've worked on a farm, and every once in while a horse decides to kick, or a Guernsey cow decides she's going to defend her calf. You have to be careful. When an elephant goes berserk, you get a stampede...of humans trying to get out of the way.

This may seem like a scare tactic, but I am willing to bet that everyone reading this has heard of more than one instance of rampaging circus animals. That always happens somewhere else though. The bottom line is that they are not domestic animals, and these animals are abused by anyone's standards. If the ASPCA found raw rope burns on my dog, or discovered that I deliberately starved it, or burned its paws, I would lose the animal and be in for a whole world of troubles. No one would wonder if it attacked me.

This is the 21st century. This generation is not starving for entertainment. If you want to see wild animals you can go to a zoo. If you don't like the conditions there, you can petition for improvements and ask legal bodies to provide the funds. There are amusement parks, ski resorts, live theaters, museums, you name it...all in the greater Knoxville area, or a short drive away. The zoo does not leave town early when it receives bad publicity for working one of its elephants to death. A ski resort does not pack up its tents and go when it is cited for violations. Circuses do that.

It is hard to let go of that icon from the past. I know that many of you still want that magic, to see the wonder in a small child's eyes, to forget all this and turn the other way. However, five or six years from now, what are you going to do when that same child picks up the local newspaper and has that illusion shattered? What do you think will go through a young adult's mind after a little research at the library, or on the internet? There are many magical childhood icons, like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, that we gain a more refined understanding of when we become adults. I do not believe that this will be the case with the elephants and tigers at the circus. I believe that it will rob those children of something and become a sordid image, like a clown face painted on a cadaver.

These animal acts belong to a time when our understanding of these creatures was limited, when people were ready to accept only the glitter... when the circus was the ONLY show in town until the next one came. This is far from true today, and it is way past time for a change. Isn't there a good movie you'd rather see?

Martin S. Stephens
Knoxville