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Dan Mathews
is the vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA), the polemical animal rights group that
is known for staging public stunts like naked catwalking at
fur shows. Mathews's memoir, Committeed, is, like some
of PETA's acts, both laugh-out-loud funny and appallingly
gruesome. Committed may be hard to stomach for some,
but it will reward the reader who appreciates people who buck
tradition and choose difficult paths.
A pudgy
kid picked on by classmates, Mathews came to two important
realizations about himself early in his life—that he's
homosexual, and that he loves animals. After befriending a
group of punk rock kids in the early 80's in Orange County,
California, he was introduced to animal rights groups like
the radical Animal Liberation Front (or ALF) and a newly formed
PETA. Mathews's real epiphany came when a friend takes him
to see a British documentary called The Animals Film,
which he only agreed to see because one of his favorite bands
was playing outside the theater. The footage of carnage in
the movie changed Mathew's mind about eating meat.
Upon
becoming a vegetarian, he almost became a new person—he
dropped 40 pounds, and then went to college in Rome where
he studied history and became an impromptu gay gigolo. His
senior thesis focused on the treatment of animals in the ancient
world, and set the stage for his return to the U.S., where
he started an animal rights group at American University in
Washington, D.C. He eventually got a job with PETA, answering
the phones. About the salary, Mathews quips, "It was like
winning on $10,000 Pyramid, plus $400."
Mathews,
though, as a stylish gigolo/historian/activist, still felt
isolated among the granola crunchers that populated the animal
rights scene in the mid-80's. But he stuck with PETA witnessed
watershed animal rights moments like the NIH occupation, when
activists took over the National Institute of Health offices
in Washington DC to protest their mistreatment of primates.
As Mathews became more entrenched in animal rights activism,
he went from being a bit unformed to having razor-sharp focus
as he honed his activism and networking skills.
Surprisingly,
Committed holds a wealth of information for anyone
interested in the 1980's alternative music scene. Mathews
and PETA, prompted by singer and animal rights activist Morrissey,
decided to start releasing compilations of pro-animal rights
songs. Coincidentally, the industrial act Ministry contacts
PETA regarding use of a sample from one of their anti-vivisection
videos, and a relationship is forged between PETA and Ministry's
label, the iconic record company of Wax Trax. R.E.M., the
B-52's, Lene Lovich, Bjork, and Nina Hagen—just some
of the seminal alternative acts that wrested the animal rights
movement from the claws of cat-loving old ladies and handed
it over to fashionable young hipsters.
Mathews
humorously describes his start in anti-fur activism. He and
a group of other young activists posed as interns and infiltrated
Calvin Klein's New York offices, spray painting "Calvin Klein
kills animals," to protest his use of fur. This paved the
way for Klein to meet with Mathews, and—this will no-doubt
cause some readers to cheer—Klein actually agreed to
stop using fur. In this chapter, Mathews's frenetic descriptions
of his antics give way to heart-breaking imagery of the atrocities
suffered by animals that are killed for fur. Committed
is not all fun and games, and these grisly descriptions are
horrifically disturbing. Luckily for the reader, these sections
are kept to a minimum, and Mathews gets his point across succinctly
and effectively.
Mathews
writes with the infectious exuberance expected from a sunny
California punk rocker, and he almost makes readers wish they
were present for the demonstrations and the break-ins perpetrated
by PETA. Charming, breezy, and thoughtful, it's easy to forget
that Mathews is the vice president of a highly provocative
animal rights group. But despite the occasional descriptions
of animal cruelty, Committed is a lively romp through
an oft-misunderstood sub-culture that may just change people's
minds about the way they eat and what they wear.
(May,
2007)
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