Caszooistry: The Art of Canning Jesse Power

Animal Rights Protest at the Toronto Film Festival

By Gary Morton Sept.14.2004 http://CitizensontheWeb.ca

Photos of the Demonstrators

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Jesse Power Shows
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   The premiere of “Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat” brought out protesters and cat torturer Jesse Power today.

   The mixed crowd of animal rights protesters had been running a signs-and-chants demo for some time across from the Cumberland cinema, many of them still enraged over Jesse’s torture and killing of a cat later named Kensington. An act he recorded on film.

   When Jesse Power made a surprise arrival things started to spin out of control. People surged onto the road to chase him and police protected him, taking him over by the theatre entrance.

   I got a blurry photo but generally had a hard time following events. Among the protesters I saw people screaming, women crying. The organizer was being calmed by another woman, and I heard a man beside me say that seeing Jesse Power was like meeting the devil.

   Trying to see him at all was hard … police forced demonstrators back to the sidewalk … then what I piece together is that Jesse started getting emotionally involved. He started shouting back at protesters, he ignored warnings from the police and spat and rushed out for a confrontation. Police rushed in and tossed him in a paddy wagon. Protesters on the road were pushed aside. One cop picked up an older man and tossed him away on the street like he was rag doll.

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   So in this case the star didn’t make it into the show. The red carpet was nearly made of his blood, and the people who feel the Film Festival made an error in choosing Casuistry are smiling.

   A day earlier on the radio I heard the creators of Casuistry describing protesters like they were a good thing. They urged listeners to follow the sounds of protest to find the film.

   At the demonstration a woman from a radio station was pushing me on the same question. She wondered if I wasn’t just boosting the film by being there. I said film people are like that, first they use a weird kid like Jesse Power to create a vacant documentary, and they use protest to their advantage, too. But it doesn’t matter because protesting is an emotional issue, you don’t necessarily win anything.

   Why would I attack the film when I haven’t seen it? My response was that others viewed it for me. I don’t want to see it. I’ve been busy writing a new horror story for my larger web site, and would rather not be disturbed by trash documentaries.

   On the art issue … I haven’t had to skin any cats or humans to do my fiction work. Snuff isn’t art so why is there a debate on that issue? The characters, the suspense, the atmosphere … once it’s all taken away and you have a film of a mindless idiot torturing a cat … then you have anti art and sick violence.

   Some people want the freedom to have no imagination and my protest is against them.

   Animal rights groups wanted the Film Fest to show Peaceable Kingdom in place of Casuistry, but that didn’t happen.

   There are always films and more films … free speech and censorship are not the issues … I think the real story should be the canning of Jesse Power … I mean in little cans like the ones for sardines and tuna … not that big police can he was driven away in.

   Squeezing his entire body into a sardine can, and filming it, with lots of tomato sauce … now that would be art. But only if I get to turn the screw that squashes him down.

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