000707 Chicken Movie Creates Stir

Los Angeles - Babe the talking pig led some people to swear off pork. Might chattering chickens do the same for poultry, even though the hens are made of clay?

The new animated movie “Chicken Run” depicts an endearing gaggle of fowl trying to escape stalag-like conditions on a poultry farm.

Burger King, which has a toy promotion pegged to the movie, has had some fun running ads urging, “Save a chicken, eat a Whopper.” The fast-food chain also hired people to wear chicken suits and stage mock poultry protests at some of its restaurants.

Others take it more seriously.

“Seen `Chicken Run?”' asks a link on the Web site of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which encourages meat-free diets. “Ready to switch to a vegetarian diet?”

The link leads to a question-and-answer page about fat content, food poisoning and other health issues. Neal Barnard, the group's president, said he expects people will so sympathize with the penned hens in “Chicken Run” that they will think twice about eating poultry.

“If people run from the theater screaming for a veggie burger, I'd be thrilled,” said Bernard, a vegetarian. “It's what happened with `Babe.' I can't tell you how many people saw that movie and happened to sit down to a pork chop and were so overcome with guilt, they said, `Make mine the veggie platter, please.”'

The National Chicken Council, a trade group for poultry processors, is unconcerned, said spokesman Richard Lobb.

“Our feeling is this is just a movie, and people are going to take it as just a movie,” Lobb said. “Chicken is the most popular food at the center of the plate, and we think it will stay there.”

Besides, in the 1995 “Babe,” the title character was played by a real pig. The movie became a rallying point for vegetarian and animal-rights groups.

John Wagner of Los Angeles said he had no thoughts about avoiding chicken after catching “Chicken Run.”

“It's a cartoon,” Wagner said, adding that the movie actually made him a bit peckish because the hens “looked like nice, plump little suckers.”

Three-year-old Vincent Joseph came out of “Chicken Run” at a Hollywood theater with no qualms about eating a drumstick. When his mother, Claire Joseph, asked if he wanted chicken for dinner, Vincent told her, “Uh-huh.”

His twin sister, Maddie, though, announced, “I want to eat fish.”

Claire Joseph said the movie did make her reconsider whether she wanted to eat chicken. “Chicken farms are terribly brutal,” she said. “They're very much like Nazi concentration camps.”

Despite its tongue-in-cheek ads, Burger King expects no actual backlash against poultry consumption. “We don't expect any protests from the chicken farmers of America,” said Richard Taylor, Burger King vice president of marketing.

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