On this day in vegan history · October 28, 1974
Joaquin Phoenix Turns His Oscar Speech Into a Rescue
The night he won an Oscar for playing the Joker, Joaquin Phoenix used the microphone to talk about a stolen calf. By the next afternoon he had gone and gotten one back.
The facts
- Born
- October 28, 1974, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Turned vegan
- Age 3, after watching fish stunned by being thrown against a boat's hull
- Oscar win
- February 9, 2020, Best Actor, Joker, 92nd Academy Awards
- Rescue
- Manning Beef slaughterhouse, Pico Rivera, CA, cow Liberty and calf Indigo, taken to Farm Sanctuary
Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquin Rafael Bottom on October 28, 1974, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His family left the religious group the Children of God in 1977, and when Joaquin was three, he and his older siblings watched fish being thrown against the side of a boat to stun them, which pushed the whole family to go vegan. Forty-three years later, accepting the Best Actor Oscar for Joker at the 92nd Academy Awards, he spent his speech not on himself but on dairy cows, describing artificial insemination, stolen calves, and milk headed for coffee and cereal. The next day, he did not go back to being a movie star. He drove to Manning Beef, a slaughterhouse in Pico Rivera, California, and helped negotiate the release of a mother cow and the calf born to her a week before, whom he named Liberty and Indigo and sent to Farm Sanctuary.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable.
Joaquin Phoenix, Best Actor acceptance speech, 92nd Academy Awards, February 9, 2020
Source: The Hollywood Reporter -
My hope is, as we watch baby Indigo grow up with her mom Liberty at Farm Sanctuary, that we'll always remember that friendships can emerge in the most unexpected places
Joaquin Phoenix, on the Manning Beef rescue
Source: Farm Sanctuary
Why it still matters
An Oscar speech reaches an audience animal rights groups never get near, and Phoenix used his to name the exact mechanics of dairy rather than a vague call to kindness. Following it the next day with an actual rescue, instead of a hashtag, is why Liberty and Indigo still get cited as more than a celebrity photo op.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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