My thoughts on Okja

Watching this movie was a little heartbreaking but that was the way it was meant to be to show us that not all our food comes from the nicest places. In the beginning of the movie Lucy Mirando is shown trying to show the world a new face on the company. She says they found this super piglet on a Chilean farm and brought it to the United States and bred her. Here was where I first thought to myself, if there was only one how did they breed her? This made me catch on pretty quickly that there was something fishy going on. Somehow they made 26 of these super piglets from just one and the Mirando company gave them to different farmers around the world to see how they grew over a ten year period. Again my thoughts were like, ten years that is an old pig. They wanted these pigs to get as big as they possibly could before bringing them back to the United States and showing the biggest one off in a parade. The little girl, Mija, that grew up with Okja loved her and cared very much for her. You can see the bond between them when Okja risks her own life to save Mija from falling off a cliff. Mija and Okja live high in the mountains with Mija’s grandfather since her parents both passes away. Mija’s grandfather tells her he bought Okja from the Mirando company and that she is not going anywhere. The very next day Mundo, the representative from Mirando comes to see Okja with the wacky animal lover guy. Mija’s grandfather then takes her for a walk and gives her a golden pig before telling her that Mirando would not let him buy Okja and the golden pig was to replace her. Mija did not take this news well and ran away to try to rescue Okja. While trying to rescue Okja, Mija meets the AFL group that is also trying to rescue but they also want to rescue the thousands of other super pigs Mirando has created by sending Okja into the afcility to get first hand footage of what they are doing. Jay the leader says he will only do it with Mija’s consent to which the guy translating tells him she agrees. Later in the movie we find out Mija did not agree and the guy translating gets beat and kicked out of the group. To save face, Mirando comes up with another plan to bring Mija to America to have her reunite with Okja if front of the world before Okja is set to go to the slaughter house. The ALF tries their best to keep their promise to save Okja but in the end it is the golden pig Mija brought with her that saves Okja. After Mija gives the golden pig to Nacy, Lucy’s twin sister, Okja is released and they are sent home. While walking out there is a baby super pig whose mother deals with the electric bolts of the fence to push the baby out for Mija and Okja to save. Okja hides the baby in her mouth and all the animals start almost cheering in both sorrow and appreciation that this one little baby could be spared.

This was a hard movie to watch with the week I had but I am glad I stuck it through and watched it. I have raised my own pigs for food and it is always hard when it comes time for them to be slaughtered. We always love our pigs and try to give them the best life possible and make them as comfortable as we can when their time comes. I think the movie shows many different sides. It shows how the corporate world can be deceiving in order to get people to buy their product. They only show you the part they want you to see and don’t show some of the horrible things they do to make things. For instance while they were showing you these amazing super pigs they were hiding the fact they were genetically modified to make them grow bigger faster to have more meat. This made it easy to sell the meat at a discounted price so the consumers were happy and would eat it because it taste good and was cheaper than other meat. The super pig that was the best was Okja and she was raised out in the mountains where she had free range to roam and eat whatever she pleased. It did not show how the other 25 super pigs were raised but when it showed the thousands of super pigs that were at the farm they did not look as healthy as Okja did. In this movie the United States is show to have corporate greed and they can not even spare the one pig that a little girl has fallen in love with over the past ten years. She has to buy this pig even though not having one of their pigs was not going to damage their company. In this movie animals and people are shown to have different relationships. Mija and Okja have a very close relationship and it show that they would do anything to protect one another. The ALF also proves they are willing to go to extremes to save all animals. The corporate world shows that animals are just money to them and they do not truly care how they are treated as long as they continue to make them money. This is a sad movie but it is often true in this world.