Hi folks,
What has surprised me about negative reactions to the Ben Stiller apology
is that we as a community do not experience many ferret-bashing people
or entities making public apologies...or any apologies, for that matter.
Verizon Wireless, anyone?  Our letters and emails didn't budge their
ferret commercial one bit nor earn any apology for the harmful image
of an "attack ferret" clinging to a screaming man's face.  When "Jane"
magazine ran a piece that was ferret-negative, the letters they received
only prompted their editor to write a follow-up piece about how ferret
owners were crazy, irrational people, and they did not retract their
negative comments about ferrets, only printed choice letters that made
the ferret people sound like uneducated, illiterate, Neanderthal idiots.
On his radio show, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cut off the president of the
New York Ferret's Rights Advocacy when he called to ask for ferret
legalization, then railed on and on about how people who liked "weasels"
were "sick" and "deranged".  He has never apologized, nor budged from
that opinion, that I am aware of, despite hundreds of ferret owners
writing and calling to express their outrage and hurt over his comments.
 
Ben Stiller has now made TWO very public displays of interacting
positively with a ferret in addition to what impressed me as a
well-delivered, sincere-sounding apology.  While his Conan stunt may
have been sillier than his ferrety interaction on The Today Show, it is
still a boost for the reputation of ferrets that a person who was bitten
by a ferret was willing to handle them and interact positively with them
on two very prominent shows.  The Today Show interview was a serious
interview that offered a serious apology - let's remember that Conan is
a very different kind of show with a different atmosphere and different
expectations of its guests.  If it had not been for the outcry from
ferret folks and the subsequent change in Ben Stiller's attitude, imagine
what kind of awful remarks he might've made on Conan!  Instead, he
followed up his morning apology by making a joke about ferret OWNERS, not
ferrets, and again interacting in a perhaps silly but still positive way
with a ferret.  While I may not love the remark, I also cannot deny that
ferret owners, when riled, CAN be scary, particularly to someone who did
not know what kind of hornet's nest he was poking with a stick when he
made comments about ferrets.
 
After hearing that "ferret owners are scarier than ferrets", I too had a
moment of offense.  Then I reminded myself that the fairly strong emails
he read on The Today Show were only a tiny sampling of what he received.
I'm quite sure that not all the communications he received were as polite
and well-written as Kim Schilling's.  I do not doubt that he received
more than a smattering of emails that were probably very emotional and
got rude or downright insulting .  Did he deserve them?  Probably.  But
can we deny that ferret owners can be scary when defending their pets?
We may not like the remark, but we may also have earned it for ourselves.
 
Do I agree with Mr. Stiller using this ferret business to further his
career and extend his publicity junket?  Of course not!  But as a ferret
owner and lover who's spent a lot of time writing, emailing and calling
various people and places that have made hurtful or negative comments or
decisions about ferrets and gotten absolutely no response, let alone an
apology, the much more positive press that ferrets have had in the last
two days in regard to Mr. Stiller, and the initial apology itself, have
been like manna from Heaven and have given me a very positive feeling
that sometimes, defending the pets I love gets someone's attention and
they admit they were wrong.  The ferret community is not exactly deluged
with apologies from those who hate ferrets, speak against ferrets, or
seek to make ferrets illegal.  In six years of writing letters and
sending emails to address "ferret wrongs", this has the distinction of
being the first full-fledged apology I have witnessed and I suspect many
other ferret folks could say that, too.
 
I think that Mr. Stiller's comments about the California ban were
ill-advised, stupid, and potentially very harmful.  But he retracted
that statement, said that he has no intention of advocating it, and
apologized for the remarks.  While I do not at all defend his remarks
nor do I condone them, I have to remind myself that a non-ferret person
would not have a sense of how volatile or sensitive this issue is, and
while in retrospect he realizes it was not appropriate joke fodder, it
was a mistake and he said as much in his apology.
 
If we refuse to acknowledge or accept a very public apology that was
coupled with the positive images of the human interacting with the
ferret, we risk becoming the irrational, unforgiving, crazy people that
we're already reputed to be.  More importantly, if we insist on sticking
to the negative and refuse to acknowledge the positive aspects of this
public, high-profile apology and subsequent efforts made to cast ferrets
in a positive light, we risk being no better than all the people and
organizations who have refused to offer the ferret community an apology
when it was well-deserved and needed, or retract their harmful remarks
or attitudes, and I KNOW that we are better than those cads.
 
While the majority of us will probably never make a huge error in
judgement and say things out of ignorance and misunderstanding that get
broadcast on national TV and picked up by the AP wire service, I think
that it behooves us to remember that apologies are often hard on any
level and while I still grumble over the remarks, I applaud not only the
apology but also the high-profile-ness of the apology.  All of my efforts
thus far to educate those who speak out against ferrets and harm their
image have fallen on deaf ears.  Mr. Stiller's apology, whatever its
motivation, be it genuine regret or simply fear for his movie career, has
given me new hope that ferret owners can make a difference in how their
pets are viewed if they speak up and speak out.
 
Let's not ruin it by refusing to accept a good apology, and when it
comes to the silliness on Conan...c'mon, guys!  We're FERRET owners!!
If anyone has a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves a
little bit, shouldn't it be us??
 
-Heather W. in Massachusetts
[Posted in FML issue 4395]