Polar bears have been getting a lot of press lately due to climate change and the odd female celebrity telling us about their diminishing environment with heart-wrenching PSAs. But despite their efforts, Lilith Fair creator and sensitive female singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan has the trump card with her ASPCA ads.
I would have a million dollars if someone paid me a million dollars to count the status updates and tweets I’ve seen where friends, or that awkward girl from high school trigonometry, bemoan the montage of sad puppy eyes, gaunt ponies, and kittens behind bars.
Example: “OMG! Those Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercials are SO SAD!!!!!!!”
I hate seeing those statuses all the time because, DOI they are supposed to be sad. That is the point of ethos as a tool. They want you to be sad about the puppies and kitties missing ears and limbs so that you give money. Money that will help the pets, but also fund commercials during prime-time television (I’m on to you, ASPCA).
So I’m frustrated because, yeah, we get it, but also because that girl from high school trigonometry was awkward and, frankly, so was I. And then not only am I going, “Oh, wow, seven exclamation points and all caps. Get this girl a Pulitzer,” I am triggered back into the days when I wore crocs to school and buckled my belts to the side. If I passed the hottest guy in school, who I casually called “the walking Greek god”, I would update every scintillating moment in my LiveJournal later that day. And, I thought I was so cool.
At this point down the rabbit hole, I’m legitimately depressed about three legged dogs (who doesn’t have April and Andy there to love him and remove him from awkward situations), as well as how much easier I could have made my life in high school if I wasn’t so convinced I was awesome…and then there’s the song.
Look, that song is beautiful. It has been an important song for a lot of people over the years, but here’s the thing: it’s about suicide. Take a good listen again to lyrics, e.g.: “There’s always some reason to feel not good enough/ And it’s hard at the end of the day” and you will quite quickly put it together. It’s not even secretly about it like how almost every classic rock song from the late 60s is about drugs/tripping/bad trips on good drugs/etc.
Screw those commercials. To the tune of “Angel” everyone can emote and type words about sad dogs, but when a polar bear is clutching a bit of ice and floating away into the Arctic Ocean, nobody speaks up. It’s Sarah McLachlan’s fault. The only way she can correct this is by writing a song equally tear jerking. She can do it. She started Lilith Fair TWICE. She can save the effing polar bears.