Two days after his
Oscars speech criticising the meat industry, the actor rescued Liberty and Indigo at a
California abattoir
Few would have anticipated the most memorable line from this year’s Oscars would involve the artificial insemination of cattle. But Joaquin Phoenix’s lengthy acceptance speech after winning the best actor Oscar for Joker was unusually specific and pointed in its attack on both farming practices and the general public for tolerating them.
“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby,” he said, “even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”