“Babe’s” Farmer Sticks it to Starbucks

This week actor James Cromwell super-glued himself to a Starbucks counter in Manhattan, to protest the coffee chain’s practice of charging extra for plant-based milk. The animal-friendly drinks are made with soy, coconut, almond, or oat milk, but they cost 80 (!) cents more than lattes with cow milk.

Cromwell, 82, sat on the counter with his right hand stuck fast, as he read from a statement he held in his left: “Starbucks claims that it wants to be more sustainable, but it discourages customers from choosing sustainable products,” he declared, while other PETA protestors milled about and the baristas tried to keep business going as usual. “When will you stop raking in huge profits while customers, animals, and the environment suffers?”

Cromwell’s activism goes back several decades, from civil rights protests to the anti-Vietnam war movement to a position on the Committee to Defend the Panthers, organized to support the 13 Black Panthers on trial for criminal conspiracy.

In 1974 Cromwell visited a Texas stockyard and because of the “smell, terror, and anxiety” he witnessed there he became a vegetarian. He went full vegan in 1995 while playing Farmer Hoggett in the film Babe. He has been arrested several times advocating for animal welfare, including in 2017 while protesting SeaWorld’s treatment of orca whales.

Cromwell was not arrested in this week’s action, but two other PETA activists were arrested in April for pulling the same stunt at a Seattle Starbucks.