SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2023 REVIEW! A rambling, chaotic oral history of veganism in the punk rock movement Punk Rock Vegan Movie is Moby’s directorial debut. Interviewing luminaries of the art form, from Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction to DH Peligro of The Dead Kennedys, the film documents the rise of veganism and the animal cruelty movement. To be clear, that would be the people up in arms and protesting animal cruelty.
In this oral history, we learn Moby started his career playing guitar for the Vaginal Commandos. Also, in the early 80s, it was incredibly difficult to be vegan on the road. We learn of various bands’ strategies for eating food while touring. Many would buy cheap stuff like cereal and soy milk. Others would acquire tahini, white bread, and lettuce. The whole time this digression was ongoing, the little voice in my head was asking, ‘Was peanut butter not available?’. If you’re going to eat commercial bread, then there should be no issue with commercial-grade peanut butter. That nut butter is straight vegan, especially the all-natural varieties.
Punk Rock Vegan Movie is at its strongest when it sticks to the oral histories of many punk rockers. When it diverges into footage of protests, it becomes a bit muddy and hard to follow. Also, the interspersed historical background footage of punk performances is haphazardly spliced into the edit, creating weird breaks. There is a very odd skit halfway through the film involving a morning News anchor interviewing The Devil (Moby).
“We learn of various bands’ strategies for eating [vegan] food while touring.”
When the movie slows down, and it’s just Moby portraying himself and his beloved fur baby Bagel (for whom Moby provides the snarky voice-over dialogue), the film becomes quite funny. Those portions are spread out over the 90 minutes of this film, so it’s never a long respite.
The found footage of animals on factory farms is heartbreaking, and yet it feels a bit retread. There are terrible scenes of animal cruelty that will be witnessed over and over again. It’s as if the film crew decided repetition of imagery would concretize the point that we should value animal life and not exploit them for food. This material was upsetting to this son of a butcher. As with the farmers in my family, animals should be treated with love and respect. When slaughtered for meat, they should be still treated respectfully, and with all the kindness one can spare; the killing blow should be swift and precise, the death should be instant, and the head should be almost perfectly severed from the rest of the body. In Punk Rock Vegan Movie, we learn many factory farms no longer practice swift slaughter. Rather they treat the animals quite terribly and permit a machine to slaughter the animals wholesale gruesomely.
It would seem Punk Rock Vegan Movie is Moby’s essay as to why he is a vegan. While it is a powerful testament of his own convictions, I, a lifelong omnivore, will continue to eat meat regardless. However, even before viewing this film, I switched to purchasing only locally sourced meat from family-owned ranches. If the meat comes from a big company like Perdue, Tyson, Murry’s, etc. I probably won’t be buying their wares anymore.
Seek this out if Punk Rock or Veganism is your jam.
Punk Rock Vegan Movie screened at the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival.