Tomato soup, mashed potatoes, pie: environmental activists should consider whether throwing food actually serves their purposes.
The fact that international environmental activism is mentioned these days in connection with cakes, mashed potatoes or tomato soup says a lot about his condition. While in past centuries people still used slingshots (David vs. Goliath), bows (Robin Hood) or other devices to achieve certain goals, the food attack, especially on works of art, is a relatively new form of protest. Starting with the film comedies of the 1930s, it was communards like Fritz Teufel who used this measure early on in this country. However, they did not throw objects, but, for example, US Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey with pudding.
While food attacks on people, the protest actions of the Belgian pastry chef and notorious cake thrower Noël Godin, for example, still have a certain entertainment effect, soup and porridge against a canvas seems terribly helpless. A work of art cannot, like Helmut Kohl in Halle in 1991, defend itself with its fists against the throwers. Nor can it duck away, like in 2001 the Berlin CDU candidate Frank Steffel behind Edmund Stoiber in front of a flying hen’s egg. Whether Da Vinci, van Gogh or Monet – in museums, pictures are simply at the mercy of food (although often protected by bulletproof glass). The same applies to the wax figure of the British king, which environmental activists (“Stop the production of oil and gas!”) just threw at Madame Tussauds in London with a cake. If you really want to save the world, let me tell you at this point: You don’t play with food.
No problem running naked onto a stage, into a church or through a football stadium if you want to protest. Opening umbrellas or shaving your hair can also be useful. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with film art as a means of protest – see Ruben Östlund’s great satire “Triangle of Sadness”. Yes, the question must be allowed: Why does today’s environmental activist not use the organic waste bin when it has to be perishable goods? Is he disgusted with the stinking crap that farmers occasionally dump out in front of authorities? As I said: Nothing against protest. But then please not with something that is actually intended for consumption.