As Thanksgiving nears, with it comes a reprieve from classes, time with family and the annual condemnation by PETA of the barbarous practice of turkey-consumption and the inhumane industry it fuels.
As reluctant as I am to concede that PETA may have a point on anything, the turkey does hold a singular position of disrepute among animals assumed as holiday symbols. Their very name is an insult–you won't see TLC running "Don't Dress Like A Precious Little Baby Chick" marathons of "What Not to Wear."
Turkeys also have a unique relation to their holiday menu. Nary a family feasts on a Christmas rack of reindeer, an oven-baked Easter rabbit or Punxsutawney Phil Fricassee on Groundhog Day. Save for the odd frosted cookie, turkeys are largely shut out of the novelty confection scene as well–they don't even get their own Peeps.
No one dresses up in festive turkey regalia either, except for that Richard Simmons appearance on "Letterman" a few years back when Dave doused him with a fire extinguisher.
Humorous, yes, but is this the depth to which this fine fowl has fallen? To be mocked on national television by an oiled-up fitness guru with an unnatural affinity for short shorts? Surely the turkey deserves better.
Indeed, if you'll recall, Mr. Simmons was so offended by the incident that he never returned to the show. So, a turkey, however indirectly, reduced the time Richard Simmons was allotted to profane the airwaves with his über-perky presence. One would think the species deserves increased esteem for this alone.
Could it be that America's irksome regard for the turkey is bred of jealousy? Though PETA claims on its Web site that "turkeys have nothing to be thankful for," turkeys don't have to pay bills, be active or be productive, they need merely gain copious amounts of weight. Sure, they may live torturous lives mired in squalor and suffering until they're brutally slaughtered, but in a nutshell, isn't that just life, minus the burdensome agency?
Turkeys do, however, own one bizarre incarnation their furry and feathered fellows do not: the hand turkey. Who was the first person to trace their hand, study it a moment, then proclaim, "Why, 'tis a turkey!" Never mind the fact that the depiction is a fundamentally flawed blending of perspectives, but a traced hand looks more like a stegosaurus, maybe an exotic airborne arthropod, or perchance a porcupine. But a turkey?
Following its aberrant conception, how did the hand turkey rise to become the kindergarten-cultural mainstay it is? Maybe that is not for our knowing. But the mere fact that it has become thusly entrenched may help explain the bird's ill standing–when a creature is reduced to such an ignoble caricature which is subsequently disseminated through impressionable youth, it seems a logical outcome.
Just a little food for thought this fine holiday–but perhaps PETA says it best: "Thanksgiving is a time for celebration, not for increased suffering and pain." Remember that if you find yourself gagging down Tofurky, being interrogated on your love life by an inebriated aunt or sending up a silent plea that Grandma won't start flinging racial epithets over dinner again this year.
Holly Noe's column runs each Friday. If you now feel compelled to regress and craft a hand turkey, e-mail her an amusing one at [email protected].
