Scary Chipotle Short Film on Plight of Farmers

Image: Screenshot

from TreeHugger.com
by Chris Tackett, Little Rock, Arkansas

Mini Spoiler Alert: This new short film/ad/music video from Chipotle, which is based around a group of young boys exploring an abandoned farm house, highlights the ongoing plight of American farmers. But instead of the spookiness of the dark rooms and dusty belongings of the previous inhabitants, what ends up being the scariest thing of all is how close this story hits to home for many Americans. Watch the video and learn more about the project below.



Here's how Chipotle explained the video:

"Abandoned" features a cover of the Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings classic "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" sung by Karen O, lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and tells the story of three boys who are exploring and vandalizing an abandoned farmhouse. One of the boys eventually comes to the frightening realization that the abandoned home may represent the plight of his own family farm.

This is the second short film to focus on small farms from Chipotle in recent weeks. I wrote about the previous video here, which was a much happier and 100% more animated look at the shift towards factory farms and how we can and should shift back to supporting small farms.

You can view the films and find more information about what Chipotle is doing to help farmers here. Oddly part of the main ask of this campaign is to dictate what people wear for Halloween and sell discounted burritos.

I'm not sure encouraging people to buy Chipotle burritos dressed as farm animals or farmers is the best way to help fix our food system, but I suppose it's much better than having people wrap themselves in aluminum foil - "I'm a burrito, duh!" as Chipotle has done in previous years for Halloween. In any case, like I mentioned in my post on the other short film, while far from perfect, we do like that Chipotle is doing something to bring attention to the needs of small farms. Other corporate food chains would be well-served to follow the lead of Chipotle and support local ingredients and farmers.

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