"CAGED" LATIN STAR BARES ALL TO BATTLE BIG TOP
PETA Launches First Hispanic Campaign Targeting Circuses as Ringling Bros. Arrives in San Diego
July 31, 2001 Kristie Phelps - 757-622-7382
San Diego - On the heels of Ringling Bros.' national Hispanic marketing effort, in which shows and ads were customized to target Spanish-speaking audiences, PETA is "baring" its claws—and a lot more—for a provocative counterattack. Body-painted as a tiger and confined to a cage, Patricia Manterola, the popular Latin singer and actor known to millions from her Spanish-language TV show Angeles, posed for an ad for PETA's first bilingual campaign entitled, "Even the Most Exotic Animals Don't Belong Behind Bars". Patricia's ad will appear on a billboard at the corner of Kemper Street and Sports Arena Boulevard through the end of August. PETA will also air ads starring Mar’a Celeste Arrar‡s, host of Univision's Primer Impacto.
Ms. Arrar‡s, voted Spanish television's most popular personality by readers of People en Espa–ol, appears in PETA's TV commercial urging people not to attend circuses that subject animals to a life of cages, chains, and beatings.
Manterola and Arrar‡s hope that their ads will convince the country's fastest-growing population to boycott animal circuses by telling the Hispanic community what the circus won't: In the wild, tigers and elephants are free to walk, run, choose companions, and raise their families. In the circus, they are whipped, muzzled, shocked with electric prods, and beaten with bullhooks to force them to perform unnatural acts—like jumping through fire—night after night, year-round. Between shows, elephants are kept chained in railroad cars, and bears and tigers are "stored" in cages barely large enough for them to turn around in.
Manterola and Arrar‡s join the likes of Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, Jackie Chan, Brigitte Bardot, Steven Seagal, and countless other celebrities who have helped PETA draw attention to animal cruelty.
For information on the many circuses that use only willing, paid human performers, like Cirque du Soleil, visit PETA's Web site at Circuses.com.
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