02-04-2008

‘Gooische Vrouwen’ cut out of Meat the Truth by order of Endemol

Amsterdam, 2nd April 2008 – An excerpt from the Dutch TV series ‘Gooische Vrouwen’ has been removed from the documentary Meat the Truth by order of its producer.

Although Endemol initially gave written permission to use the excerpt, the producer later changed its mind and demanded that the footage be removed from the documentary.

This footage showed how the character Anouk Verschuur (Susan Visser) brings a bag full of frozen meat round to Willemijn Lodewijkx (Annet Malherbe) because she thinks that it is “immoral to keep on eating meat.” In this excerpt the actress explains to her neighbour that she no longer wishes to eat meat because she’s heard that “100,000 litres of water are needed for 1 kilo beef, while 1 kilo of potatoes uses 500 litres”.

Lodewijckx maliciously enquires whether this is the reason why she has brought the meat round to her immoral friend, whereupon Verschuur answers that she thinks that people already generate enough waste.

These events are reminiscent of an incident in 1998 involving the RTL4 soap series Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden.  At that time, the character Kim (Angela Schijf) was portrayed as a fanatical vegetarian. This was reason enough for the Meat Information Bureau (a major advertiser at RTL) to raise the alarm. In great haste, in the series the character Kim converted to eating “hamburgers, braising steaks and croquettes” as, according to RTL, “had always been the intention”. 

Although lawyers have argued that the use of the excerpt from ‘Gooische Vrouwen’ in Meat the Truth falls under the ‘right to cite’, which means that no permission is actually necessary, the makers of the film have nonetheless decided to scrap the excerpt from the film.

Meat the Truth is the first documentary to identify the relationship between meat consumption and global warming. The film forms an erratum to earlier climate change documentaries, which have convincingly explained the problems relating to global warming, but have overlooked one of the most important causes thereof. The film makes it clear that worldwide, livestock farming is a far bigger cause of climate change than all the cars, lorries, planes and ships added together.

Meat the Truth will be screened in Dutch cinemas from mid-April onwards. More information can be found on www.meatthetruth.nl.  The international version of Meat the Truth will premiere in London in mid-May and in New York in June.