Porkopolis

Philosophy

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Babe illustrates a different kind of success, one in which the "it" (of "Just Do It," "making it," "going for it") is interrogated and challenged... Babe's world is the one we live in; heroic moments are temporary and connections with others are finally what sustain us. This is a reality we may be inclined to forget as we try to create personal scenarios that will feel like Olympic triumphs and give us the power and "agency" over our bodies and lives that the commercials promise. But we still feel the emotional tug of abandoned dreams of connection and intimacy and relationships that will feed us in the open-hearted way that the Boss feeds little Babe and Babe's eating feeds him.

Susan Bordo
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky and feminist philosopher of contemporary life. Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O.J. (1997).

Deep hemorrhagic infarcts — the phrase began fastening its hooks in my head. I had assumed that there could be nothing much wrong with a pig during the months it was being groomed for murder; my confidence in the essential health and endurance of pigs had been strong and deep, particularly in the health of pigs that belonged to me and that were part of my proud scheme. The awakening had been violent and I minded it all the more because I knew that what could be true of my pig could be true also of the rest of my tidy world.

E. B. White (1899-1985)
U.S. author and essayist. "The Death of a Pig", one of White's essays in The Atlantic Monthly and collected in Essays of E. B. White (1977).