The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, A Vegan Allegory

Oct 21, 2019

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
–Jiddu Krishnamurti

Vegans In A Carnist World

Horror movies are made to delve into the scary, dark places from which we usually shy away. Though I won’t claim to be knowledgeable about film history or theory, when I watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the first time, I was immediately drawn in by not only the plot, but by how it could be interpreted as an allegory for veganism. While there are many other interpretations of this classic movie, no one wants to really talk about this one that’s the most obvious. Some film scholars and theorists will mention it, but they, being mostly carnists, are likely not too keen on researching it too heavily.[1] We’ll be delving into the story of this film and how different aspects relate to veganism, or even more so, to carnism. Even if you’re not a fan of horror, we’ll be touching on difficult philosophical and emotional problems currently in our world as we move into the future.

First and foremost, this film is entirely about the vegan experience. It represents how carnists, or nonvegans, and carnist society and culture are viewed by vegans. And the carnists, the cannibalistic family in the movie, have absolutely no knowledge of how we see them; for once, they are the outsiders. To them, this is just how they think they must live because they are completely uneducated on how their actions affect the lives of others and how they could live happily as vegans. They represent the extremes to which carnists go to reject veganism and the anger and frustration they feel with themselves. For instance, after our titular group is spooked by the hitchhiker they picked up slicing into his own hand, they kicked him out of the van. Franklin then asks Kirk, “That guy cut the hell out of himself…. You think you could do that to yourself?” We can see here, from an outside perspective, how detrimental it is to our mental and physical health to perpetuate carnism. We see how carnists lie to themselves in order to feel comfortable with their violent way of life.

The Emotional Struggles of Carnists

Later on, however, we see the internal struggle within a carnist. The father, billed as “Old Man,” and later named Drayton Sawyer, says, “There’s just some things you gotta do. Ya don’t have to like it.” This is the penultimate carnist excuse for rejecting veganism: it’s just how things are. Though he doesn’t like to kill, he feels that he must consume human flesh for survival, so he just has to grin and bear it. Our society has placed us all in a morally compromising position by forcing us, since birth, to believe that certain wrong things are right, or at least essential for us to survive. It’s quite a sad and terrifying reality of the world in which we live.

Leatherface, ironically, is in a similar position. Like a carnist on the verge of being vegan but not quite there yet, he senses something is wrong and shows some desire to change. We can even see this visually represented by him wearing a mask made of someone else’s skin. He’s so uncomfortable and ashamed with what he does that he must actually wear another face to do it. Ultimately, however, we’re left with no resolution, and we see his frustration taken out as he spins around in circles, madly swinging his chainsaw.

"Don't Talk About That!"

Early in the movie, we can see the disconnect between animals, slaughter, and food in our “civilized” world. Franklin was (incorrectly, or at least not fully) explaining the slaughter process to his friends as they traveled down the road in their van. Pam, understandably, was disgusted and even made the bold claim after hearing this that humans shouldn’t eat animals. Unfortunately for her, she then becomes exactly what she hates and gets hung up on a meat hook just like an animal. Sally, our final girl (which is ironic since she’s saved by an empty slaughter truck), on the other hand, said she liked meat and didn’t want to hear about the killing process. Well, go figure. Sorry, Sally, but no one likes to hear or see it, and that’s why in our modern world of smartphones and space exploration we’re still murdering animals for food when there is absolutely no need for it. The problem is so great and disgusting and despicable that we literally cannot deal with it, pushing it off every day, killing more animals in the process.

An Actual Slaughterhouse

As we come from the perspective of the victims, a group of five teens, they are also a representation of your typical “food” animals. However, much like in the real world, we, the viewers, are completely helpless. We can only watch the horrors unfold, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. This is such a common trope in horror movies for young people to be the ones attacked and killed that it’s almost lost all meaning now, but the victims are supposed to be children, minors. These adolescents are usually depicted as two-dimensional characters, driven almost solely by primal urges for sex, food, and survival, which is similar to how we view animals bred for food: emotionless things far away, doing things we don’t really want to see and having things done to them that make us squirm, but we keep consuming their torturous deaths. They are old enough to satisfy these needs but young enough to not fully understand what’s happening to them as they get picked off one-by-one. The sheer number of groups of teens murdered in horror movies is enough to rival how many animals have been slaughtered…each second.

On their journey, we experience their fear and pain each time they’re confronted by the murderous family, henceforth referred to as the Sawyers, who represent carnism, or more specifically, a slaughterhouse. This is the journey of lambs to the slaughter, trucking them along to a large building in the middle of nowhere where they meet their demise. Even the house looks like how an animal would see a slaughterhouse: skins of their species hung up, screams as they slowly die, red walls of blood.

Rituals & Traditions

There is a ritualistic method to killing, and we can see that as the Sawyers prepare Sally for the feast. What’s interesting is that they focus more on creating fear than actually hurting her. Like how slaughterhouse workers may yell at, kick, and torture animals before they’re ultimately killed, the Sawyers ensure Sally is properly terrified first. When she was captured by Drayton, he kept prodding her with a broom handle to keep her quiet and under his control. Clearly, this wasn’t really necessary, but that’s simply how he thinks other people are meant to be treated. Because they are the Sawyers’ food, clothing, furniture, and everything for which we use animals today, he sees other humans as inferior creatures unworthy of his respect in any capacity.

If you’re unfamiliar with the slaughter process, workers are usually equipped with electrified paddles or prods to scare and hurt the animals into moving down the kill chute. This leads to a much more startling realization of the link between animal and human violence. Once you begin to commit acts of violence upon animals – as the Sawyers did, working in a slaughterhouse before losing their jobs – the likelihood of hurting other humans increases.[2]

A Powerful Moment

There is one scene in the film so impactful and powerful that I don’t know how anybody could watch it without understanding its implications. And that’s the first kill. Kirk, upon entering the Sawyer residence, is met with a hammer to the head, instantly knocking him to the ground. His body begins to convulse uncontrollably from the bludgeoning. I was instantly sent back to Dominion. He looked just like an animal after an ineffective stunning (which is what the bolt gun is used for, unlike how Franklin described earlier in the film – animals must be alive when they’re drained of blood), legs thrashing around as they desperately try to stand up and run away from these monsters. There were even sounds of pigs grunting and squealing through this short sequence. In our ability to feel pain, suffer, and die, humans are the same as all other animals. Just to think that that happens every single time we eat a piece of bacon, drink a glass of milk, wear leather, or use any other animal product is bone-chilling.

Violent Tendencies

In the real world, the story is a manifestation of our inability to cope with our violent behavior toward nonhuman animals. The way we deal with it is to transfer this same violence to human beings, someone we feel more comfortable relating to. In the movie world, the Sawyers can no longer commit acts of violence against nonhuman animals at a slaughterhouse, so they are forced to take out all that frustration on humans now.[3, 4] And when we reach the end of the movie, there is no resolution, and we understand that this family will continue to do this. We, as the audience, as vegans, question how or if this will ever end. Will the cycle of torture continue? To which we, as hopeful beings, want to believe that they will somehow be stopped so we aren’t served for dinner next time.

We Are the Sawyers

There is a theory that posits that this story is a product of the repression of our dark urges and desires that we don’t act upon for fear of retribution in our civilized society.[5] I disagree. I think this draw to violence is due to the violence we consume and promote that has become ingrained in our culture. It’s not because we are a civil society. It’s because we are completely the opposite, but we masquerade as something better than we are. Our fragile minds can’t handle the extreme violence we commit on everything else, because at heart we are all good people. We have simply been led severely astray by the people pulling the strings.

The Sawyers are a physical representation of the moral schizophrenia (referring to our outward belief in being kind and peaceful but our hateful actions that are the opposite of everything we value) in our society.[6] And this is even represented in the movie. It almost seems like a joke for the family to claim that Grandpa is the best killer when he is clearly just a living corpse. Grandpa can’t kill for himself just like carnists refuse to even peek at slaughterhouse footage, let alone do the breeding, raising, killing, and butchering for themselves. Since he can’t deliver a killing blow to Sally’s head, Leatherface holds the hammer with him, bringing it down on Sally’s skull. The government along with these giant agribusinesses force workers to kill for them, playing the puppet master with their lives and the animals’ lives. All to deliver fresh, juicy flesh to us, their unsuspecting victims.

Film For All

To close, I absolutely love this movie; it’s incredibly enjoyable even without considering all the interpretations and theories hidden within. Though it's considered a "slasher," it doesn't follow all the stereotypical tropes developed in later films of the subgenre, something I greatly appreciate. There were many other themes, both relating to veganism and not, I could have discussed here, but I simply didn’t have the time and space to fit them all into this post. These are just the aspects that stuck out to me as I was watching. But I think it’s important to consider, especially if you’re not vegan, the very grim reality that the world in which we currently live is a very real version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.[7]