There's a lot of series that go unnoticed, under the radar, simply because of poor promotion or maybe general lack of interest. They're rather niche. But this happens, I've found, even more often in the realm of British television. A lot of factors go into this; often times it's because of an overwhelming amount of content is produced and thusly nobody can see everything that makes it to air, or sometimes a show is just too strange or weird to really be appreciated, or sometimes it's because they only make a certain number of episodes (something the American model of television finally seemed to adapt, for better or worse, in the last five years) and so there isn't as much to consume so people don't become really as attached because there's simply not enough content to spend enough time with to begin to care about.
Thankfully, I grew up (well, depends on context; in some cases I was lucky, as my parents were fairly democratic, open minded and into culture, so I had things like the IFC channel and saw a lot of live theatre, but they were also psychologically abusive monsters, so) having access to nice cable premium channels like, as I mentioned in the parentheses, the IFC channel. The IFC channel got a lot of rights to rebroadcast random stuff in the US, and a lot of that stuff was weird and somewhat obscure British television. One of those shows wound up being a series titled I Am Not An Animal.
I Am Not An Animal was created by a man named Peter Baynham and aired in 2004. It tells the story of a group of highly intelligent animals rescued from a vivisectionist laboratory and forced to live on their own. It has a very stylized, almost early South Park look to it, where everything looks like it's made of construction paper, and the visual aesthetic was honestly what was so striking to me when I first caught it. Thankfully, I stuck around, because goddamn was the show a work of art.
I, for one, was always a big fan of anthropomorphic animals. Having grown up in the 90s and 2000s, there was plenty of that to be raised on. In fact, most childrens entertainment for a good few decades consisted primarily of nothing but anthropomorphized animals, and we loved it. But this had a dark edge to it, it was clearly meant for adults, and had a bit of biting social commentary to boot. It's certainly not for everyone, I acknowledge that, but I appreciated it for what it was, and I still do.
I never really felt like a human. I mean, I'm not one of those people who think they're an animal or anything (my furry status not withstanding) but I definitely have always related much more to animals than I ever did with people. I made friends with animals much easier, and I never really, thanks to my autism, understood societies norms and social cues, thus leaving me all the more animalistic. Don't get me wrong, as stated, I don't take to the woods and bay at the moon or anything. But I also just never really felt that related to other people as much as I relate to animals. To live in society, there's so many laws and unwritten rules that one has to abide by, and it's just...overwhelming, to be quite honest, especially for someone like me. But an animal? An animal just wants to live their life, eat their food and take care of those they love, whether it's others in their pack or their own family. Now that's a lifestyle I can get behind.
The characters in the show bicker and have their issues, but they do, ultimately, come together to form a tight knit group that knows they're different, that knows they're definitely not the same as people, but still deserve to be treated as such, whether or not they're as intelligent as a human or not in the same way we gauge human intelligence.
I'm all for animal rights. I mean, I eat meat, I don't deny it, but I also am pretty much against hunting for the most part and am always glad to see labs stop using animals for testing subjects, especially for really brutal things. I don't like that horses are shot if they break their legs, I don't like that far too many dogs or cats are simply killed if they aren't adopted, and I really don't like how slaughterhouses function. There has to be a more humane way for these things to work. I won't stop eating meat, my body physically can't stand a plant based diet, trust me, I've tried, but I also want to see animals be treated a lot better than they currently are. Just because a chicken doesn't hold a degree in psychology or a walrus can't build a Toyota Tundra doesn't mean they're worth less or are less intelligent or deserve less a life in the wild.
I guess I'm sort of steering somewhat off topic here. I Am Not An Animal is a really unique little show that only ran for 6 episodes, but sometimes I think maybe that's all it really needed to make its point. Human beings are not better than animals. We are animals. It's the animals that are better than us. Animals don't start wars, animals don't cause mass shootings and animals don't generally abuse their young. I'm proud to be more associated with animals than people.
I am not an animal, no, but I sure do wish I were.
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