Animal Rights Group Performs Supermarket Chicken Funeral

By C.A. Pinkham | November 25, 2014 | 1:30am

Remember Direct Action Everywhere, the group from last month that brought us the video of a distraught woman telling restaurant customers the story of her chicken baby? They’re back,* and now they’ve gifted us that marvelous, marvelous headline. I genuinely love these people, in the same way I loved Herman Cain’s failed political career.

This time, the video opens with an extremely solemn, well-dressed young man in a supermarket saying “in memory *pause* of a life lost.” He then picks up a packaged chicken, sighs with determination, and, carrying it to the meat section, shouts out “it’s not food, it’s violence” (this is apparently the group’s ongoing slogan). Then the video becomes truly incredible and makes me thank whatever deity is up there that YouTube exists.

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Several other group members cart out a casket (a human-sized casket, which makes this so much funnier for reasons I can’t explain) and begin to perform a funeral. Another member of the group gets in front of the camera and says “we have a dream,” then all but shouts “oh, shit” after he realizes he wasn’t supposed to do this yet (this is my favorite moment of the whole thing). You can actually hear people laughing as the chicken is laid to rest inside the casket and the well-dressed guy begins his speech over the laughing reactions of supermarket customers (at one point you can hear one shout “is this real life?”).

Multiple members of the group then attempt to eulogize someone’s dinner as an increasingly exasperated and ignored supermarket manager politely tries to tell them they need to leave. This includes “we have a dream” guy (who reminds me of a less self-aware version of the star of Boom Goes the Dynamite), who is finally ready for his big moment — although it’s somewhat marred by a supermarket employee with a dolly piled high with produce asking them to please move out of the way so he can do his job, as well as the continued efforts of the manager to get them to please stop interfering with the operation of the supermarket. Thankfully for the sake of comedy, they do not comply.

There are so many other great moments in this video (which culminates in a funeral procession around the supermarket), but I want you all to be able to discover them for yourself. So please: watch. Enjoy. Marvel. And be sure to share your favorite moments in the comments below.

God, I love my job.

* I realize this video is now two and a half weeks old, but I just got to it, and come on, how could I pass this up? To be fair, I definitely need to start following this group on YouTube. They’re almost guaranteed to provide wonderful material.