PETA Hails ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ for ‘Unflinching Advocacy’ of Animal Rights

thewrap.com:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” has earned both rave reviews from Marvel fans and shocked reactions to the horrifying flashbacks depicting Rocket Raccoon’s dark past.

For the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), those flashbacks make the film the “best animal rights film of the year.” “Through Rocket, James Gunn has put a face, a name, and a personality on the millions of vulnerable animals being cycled through laboratories as we speak,” praised PETA senior VP Lisa Lange in a statement to media. “PETA is celebrating this as the best animal rights film of the year for helping audiences see animals as individuals and suggesting that just because we can experiment on them doesn’t mean that we should.”While many of the unethical and abusive experiments that the Marvel film’s villain, The High Evolutionary, puts Rocket and his friends through are based in sci-fi, PETA says that some of the flashback scenes are rooted in real life.

As an example, PETA points to the code name that the High Evolutionary gives Rocket and tattoos on his body: 89P13. The activist organization says that similar number designations are given to animals that are used by scientists in labs “to dissociate from the sentient being they’re tormenting.” And when Rocket is strapped down by the High Evolutionary for the painful process that begins his traumatic road to becoming a Guardian of the Galaxy, he is locked into a restraint system used in actual labs on primates. “Like Rocket’s friends Lylla, Teefs, and Floor, most animals used in laboratories are killed after enduring a lifetime of suffering.

They’re held in cramped cages, often alone, and mutilated, infected with diseases, purposely bred to suffer from debilitating conditions, forced.